Oral Answers to Questions

NORTHERN IRELAND

The Secretary of State was asked—

Northern Ireland Assembly

Daniel Kawczynski: What recent assessment he has made of the prospects for the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly; and if he will make a statement.

Tobias Ellwood: If he will make a statement on the future of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Peter Hain: All the Northern Ireland political parties support the principle of devolution. All of them support the principle of an Assembly and devolved government. They differ on how to achieve it. Our challenge is to bridge those differences, but one thing is certain: the current impasse cannot and will not continue. We cannot keep the Assembly standing idle; we cannot continue to pay Members of the Legislative Assembly indefinitely during suspension; and we cannot have meaningless elections in May 2007, to an Assembly that does not exist. This year is decisive, and all the party leaders will be facing some hard choices.

Daniel Kawczynski: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. What is the single biggest impediment to the Assembly being reinstated? Who is to blame for the fact that the process is dragging out?

Peter Hain: In the end, the Assembly can only be re-established and power-sharing governance instituted if the parties agree. Neither the Prime Minister, myself, the Irish Government nor anyone else can force Northern Ireland's parties to agree—it is a decision for them—but they will face a hard choice later this year if they do not reach that agreement.

Tobias Ellwood: Although the Assembly is suspended and has not met for three years, it continues to cost the taxpayer more than £100 million and 108 Members of the Legislative Assembly continue to draw their salaries. Two months ago, the Secretary of State said:
	"I'm not giving a particular month, but I am saying that if we haven't seen progress by the summer, the first decision that I'm going to have to make is over continued payment of salaries and also allowances."
	Can he update the House on what progress has been made on the re-establishment of the Assembly and the cutting of salaries?

Peter Hain: What I said previously—the hon. Gentleman quotes me accurately—remains the case.

Eddie McGrady: After an ill-advised deadline of 8 March has come and gone, will   the Secretary of State now address the proposals of   the Social Democratic and Labour party, which called for the re-establishment of a fully devolved Administration—if necessary, with a temporary Executive appointed from non-elected members or, indeed, consisting of the Northern Ireland Office Ministers themselves—until such time as an agreed Executive can be formed? Does he not agree that that would encourage the parties to participate and that their failure to do so would be a rejection of their mandate and, in a sense, an illustration of the fact that they are putting party before people?

Peter Hain: I understand the point that hon. Gentleman makes, but he has not persuaded, nor has his party, any other party to support that proposition. That is his problem, and there is no point in inviting me, as Secretary of State, to back that policy, when no party, apart from the SDLP, will subscribe to it.

Lembit �pik: The Secretary of State talks about the restoration of the Assembly, but he allows his Ministers to make extraordinarily important decisionsfor example, about the Northern Ireland education systemthat should be left to a reconstituted Assembly. If he is so sure that we can get the Assembly running again, why does he allow the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Basildon (Angela E. Smith), to talk about doing away with the selection process, which, as everyone knows, needs to be the subject of considerably more consultation and discussion in Northern Ireland? Surely, regardless of where individual Ministers stand on selection, the Government need to agree that such a decision should be left to the Assembly. If they do not, it raises questions about how optimistic they are about the reconstitution of the Assembly.

Peter Hain: Is the hon. Gentleman telling me that he supports a child's future being decided on the basis of a test at the age of 11? Is that what he supports? Is it new Liberal Democrat policy that a child can either be relegated to a secondary school in Northern Ireland, with no decent future, or go to one of the excellent grammar schools? Is that the Liberal Democrat policy? Of course, such a decision should ideally be made by a devolved Assembly. However, until there is a devolved Assembly, we must govern in the interests of Northern Ireland on the economy, on health, with waiting lists coming down, and on reforming the school 14 to 19 curriculum in the interests of all those children in Northern Ireland who have been failing so consistently under the system for so long.

Ian Paisley: Why does the Secretary of State not face up to issue that there is one party that will not agree to the so-called basis of the agreement, namely that we all should be democrats? When will the Government be prepared to say, There's only one way in, and that way is for everyone. You have not kept that way. Therefore, you have to be excluded.? The time has come when he has to decide whether he will tell those who agree with terrorism that they can be in the Government.

Peter Hain: If the right hon. Gentleman is saying that Sinn Fein has not committed itself following the IRA statementand, to be fair to it, for many years beforeto a democratic, peaceful and political path, I do not think that he is judging the evidence as it has been presented to us. If he is also asking me to bar a very important part of the Northern Ireland political constituency from representation in the Assembly or a power-sharing Government, I cannot agree with him on that. We have got to make progress. His party needs to talk to the other parties and, at some point sooner rather than later, his party needs to talk to Sinn Fein, because it is the second largest party in Northern Ireland.

David Lidington: As the Secretary of State knows, we hope that these talks succeed. However, can he confirm that the Government accept the principle that no one should serve as a Minister in a Northern Ireland Executive unless he or she is willing to accept the legitimacy of the police and the courts and give firm support to both those institutions?

Peter Hain: Obviously, it is essential that all parties subscribe to the rule of law, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman on support for policing as well. We have repeatedly called for Sinn Fein to come into line and support policing in Northern Ireland. There is absolutely no reason for it not to do so. Indeed, there is increasing pressure from within republican communities for their elected representatives to co-operate with the police in combating ordinary crime. So we are absolutely agreed on that.

David Lidington: I am grateful for that assurance from the Secretary of State. If, as we hope does not happen, these talks do not succeed in allowing for the reconstitution of the devolved institutions, can he give the House an assurance now that, although we welcome and value close co-operation with the Irish Republic, joint authority as a means of governing Northern Ireland in the absence of devolution would be at complete variance with the principle of consent in the Belfast agreement and, therefore, should be rejected?

Peter Hain: I do not think that anybody is talking about joint authority. I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman's support for the general strategy that we have adopted, and I acknowledge that and the constructive role that he is playing in seeking to persuade all the parties to find a common way forward. But I am not anticipating failure. I think that there is a real prospect of getting the Assembly up and running and getting power-sharing governance at the end of that. Let us work on that together, as I am sure that he wants to do.

Health and Personal Social Service Regulation and Improvement Authority

Iris Robinson: What the remit is of the Health and Personal Social Service Regulation and Improvement Authority; and if he will make a statement.

Shaun Woodward: The remit of the independent authority is to monitor, inspect and encourage improvement in the availability and quality of health and social services, and to regulate a wide range of services delivered by HPSS bodies and by the independent sector.

Iris Robinson: I thank the Minister for his response, but he will be aware that the authority has recently investigated the tragic death of Janine Murtagh at the Royal Victoria hospital. The coroner in the case wrote to the previous Health Minister to express concern about a claim by seven consultant surgeons at the RVH about obstruction in getting gravely ill patients to theatre for surgery. The authority said that this was not a factor in the Murtagh case, but will the Minister agree to a meeting with me and Mr. Murtagh to discuss Mr. Murtagh's grave concerns about the letter and the authority's response?

Shaun Woodward: First, I know that the trust has already apologised to the Murtagh family, and may I, on behalf of the Department, extend my deepest condolences to Mr. Murtagh following the tragic death of his wife? The hon. Lady knows that the coroner made those recommendations and that the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela E. Smith), when she was Health Minister, asked the regulation authority to conduct an independent review. The independent review published its findings last October and it found that, in this instance, there was no evidence to support the allegations made by the hon. Lady. That being said, it has been necessary to make a number of very significant changes to clinical practice at the hospitalthose have happenedand the authority will monitor and report on those changes. There are also implications for the health service more widely in Northern Ireland, and I am insisting that we learn the lessons of the tragic death of Mrs. Murtagh and that we apply those lessons for the benefit of all patients in Northern Ireland. I will be more than happy to meet Mr. Murtagh, with the hon. Lady, to discuss those changes.

Unemployment

Ben Chapman: If he will make a statement on levels of unemployment in Northern Ireland.

Angela Smith: Over the past year unemployment fell by 4,000 and now stands at 4 per cent., with 32,000 people unemployed, compared with the UK rate of 5 per cent. That is the lowest recorded level in Northern Ireland and we also have the highest levels of employment ever.

Ben Chapman: That is good news, but there is a particular issue about those who are classified as economically inactive. Will my hon. Friend tell me what is being done to give help and encouragement to them?

Angela Smith: One of the key areas that we have to address in supporting the economically inactive back into work is skills. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's announcement about the skills and science fund is so important. Despite the support from the Liberal Democrats for an education system that currently supports 24 per cent. of the working population having no qualificationsthe figure is only 13 per cent. for the rest of the UKwe have to ensure that our work force are skilled. Through the skills and science fund, we will support pathways to work to get the economically inactive back into work, but also ensure that we provide additional support for young people coming out of school and those who have been out of work for some considerable time.

Lady Hermon: Given the Government's strong support for restorative justice schemes in Northern Ireland, I am sure that the Minister will be very concerned to know that those who run and work for the very successful IMPACT restorative justice scheme in North Down are about to become unemployed through lack of funding. Will she try to prevent the increase in unemployment in my constituency by pledging support for the IMPACT scheme today?

Angela Smith: My hon. Friend has found a creative way to address the issue of unemployment. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has indicated that guidelines are currently being prepared on restorative justice and they will inform decisions that are being made on the issue.

Alasdair McDonnell: I thank the Minister for her comments and welcome the relatively low levels of unemployment. However, does she agree that there are significant levels of under-employment, with well qualified people employed in jobs for relatively unqualified people or low level jobs? Secondly, there is a fairly high level

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. One question will be enough on this occasion. We are limited for time.

Angela Smith: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend on that issue. As our recent manufacturing report highlighted, we must consider three requirements if we are to increase employment and grow the economy. We need to be innovative and creative, invest in research and development and ensure that we have a highly skilled work force. Only by skilling up our work force, using the skills and science fund, can we address the points that he makes. We need to attract inward investment in Northern Ireland to create jobs. We will create high quality jobs only if we have the skills that match.

Laurence Robertson: Of those who are unemployed, 33.8 per cent. are long-term unemployed, compared with the UK average of 20.7 per cent. Those are the figures that the Secretary of State quoted in a speech to the Fabian Society in January. Equally worrying are the new deal figures, which show that as many young people in Northern Ireland are economically inactive now as when the Government came to power. Why are those figures so unfortunate and what can the Minister do about it?

Angela Smith: There are a number of issues. One of them is about ensuring that we have an education system and training system that addresses the challenges of the future. At present, we find that 24 per cent. of the working population have no qualifications. If young people are coming out of school with no qualifications because, at the age of 11, they were put into a system that did not allow them to reach their full potential, we do not meet the employment needs that we need to meet. The skills and science fund, the reviews of education and the changes in the curriculum will ensure that we skill our young people and get the economically inactive back to work. We are extending the pathways to work scheme, which has been very successful in England.

John McFall: Although I welcome the reduction in unemployment figures and the work that the Government are doing, the Minister will be aware that the public sector contribution to gross domestic product from Northern Ireland is the highest in the UK. What initiatives has she undertaken with the private sector to ensure that there is a more even distribution and, in an increasingly globalised world, what initiatives and talks has she undertaken with the Republic of Ireland on that issue?

Angela Smith: My right hon. Friend is quite right to highlight that point. Public spending, at more than 60 per cent. of the GDP a head, is nearly one third higher than the UK average. The imbalance in jobs between the public and private sectors is a problem when looking to the long-term future of the economy. We need to encourage businesses to be innovative, creative and invest in research and development. Those factors encourage investment into Northern Ireland. If we do not improve the performance of the private sector, we do not meet those challenges. There are a number of international investorsCoca Cola, Oracle and Seagateinvesting in Northern Ireland and they will grow jobs to ensure that we improve the balance between the public and private sectors.

Decommissioning

Nicholas Winterton: What recent acts of weapons decommissioning have taken place; and if he will make a statement.

Peter Hain: The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning has reported that it has witnessed full and final decommissioning by the IRA. The IICD continues to engage with the representatives of loyalist paramilitary groups on how they can make the transition from conflict to peace.

Nicholas Winterton: The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will be aware that the eighth Independent Monitoring Commission report did not endorse the de Chastelain commission's findings relating to the decommissioning of the totality of IRA weaponry. When will the Government bring about the total decommissioning of IRA weapons and ammunition in a way that is transparent to all the people not only of Northern Ireland but of the United Kingdom?

Peter Hain: The hon. Gentleman is a very respected Member of this House[Hon. Members: Hear, Hear.] Indeed, and I am sure that he is not questioning the integrity of the international independent decommissioning agency under General John de Chastelain, that of the other independent commissioners or that of the two clerical witnesses from the Methodist Church of Ireland and the Catholic Church. The IICD reported on 26 September that it had
	determined that the IRA had met its commitment to put all its arms beyond use in a manner called for by the legislation.
	In January, it said that
	in the absence of evidence to the contrary our 26 September assessment regarding IRA arms remains correct.
	I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would take account of that. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I appeal to the House to reduce the noise level. We must hear all the questions and answers.

Electricity Supplies

Jeff Ennis: What plans he has to improve the long-term sustainability of the electricity distribution system in Northern Ireland.

David Hanson: The new 59 million environment and renewable energy fund which the Government have established will help to increase the proportion of electricity from sustainable sources currently distributed to customers in Northern Ireland from 5.6 per cent. to 12 per cent. by 2012. We have also commenced an all-island electricity grid study to facilitate renewable generation up to 30 per cent. by 2020.

Jeff Ennis: Obviously, the Minister is absolutely right to say that we need to invest more in renewable energy in Northern Ireland. What specific steps is he taking to encourage individuals to invest in renewable energy?

David Hanson: As part of the 59 million fund, over the next two years some 8 million will be available to enable more than 4,000 private households to install solar, wind or geothermal energy systems. Also, there is almost 2 million for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to install 600 solar panels in its properties. That will, I hope, encourage the use of renewable energy. To set that in context, I can say that if that investment had been made in England, more than 100,000 properties would, over the next two years, have benefited from investment in solar power and other forms of renewable energy. I think that is very positive.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: Given the Minister's support for power-sharing, does he agree that the future of Northern Ireland's electricity industry is bound up with the national industry throughout the rest of the United Kingdom? Will he support the greater integration of the Northern Ireland network into the UK national network and the sharing of power between the two islands?

David Hanson: We will look at whatever is in the   interests of Northern Ireland as a whole. In the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill before the House we are looking at the potential for an all-Ireland electricity generation market. We shall certainly consider the potential for links with the United Kingdom. The key point is what is in the interests of the people and the consumers in Northern Ireland, and we will do whatever is right and necessary in terms of co-operation with the Republic and with the rest of the United Kingdom to achieve those aims.

Unemployment

Mary Creagh: What steps he is taking to assist those in Northern Ireland who are economically inactive back into work.

Angela Smith: A comprehensive range of provisions is available which includes the new deal, disablement advisory service programmes and the bridge to employment programme.

Mary Creagh: I thank my hon. Friend for her reply. What specific measures has my hon. Friend introduced to help lone parents return to economic employment?

Angela Smith: My hon. Friend highlights a specific area that we have addressed. Lone parents are included in the pathways to work project, which is funded by the skills and science fund. To ensure joined-up government we have linked pathways to work for lone parents with the extended schools programme so that when parents who want to work are at work their children are cared for in a secure and safe environment.

Paramilitary Ceasefires

David Gauke: What his assessment is of the observance of the paramilitary ceasefires in Northern Ireland.

Shaun Woodward: The Independent Monitoring Commission made it clear on 8 March that it believes that the Provisional IRA has   taken a strategic decision to follow a political path. It does not, in its view, present a terrorist threat. The Government continue to engage with loyalist paramilitary representatives, and we remain firmly committed to helping them make the transition from conflict to peace.

David Gauke: Notwithstanding the IMC reports, there are persistent claims that some IRA members have kept their arms, despite the announcement of the IRA ceasefire in July. What is the Minister's assessment of those claims, and is there any validity in the suggestion that the IRA continues to hold arms?

Shaun Woodward: First, I agree with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman read that report and not be too selective in his judgments. I remind him, too, that on 8 March the Independent Monitoring Commission made it clear that it believes that PIRA has taken the strategic decision to follow a political path, does not present a terrorist threat, and is not a threat to members of the security forces. The IMC, the IICD and the Government have no reason to doubt the commitment of the IRA leadership to the undertakings that it has given.

Northern Ireland Education Order

Sammy Wilson: If he will reverse his decision to introduce the Northern Ireland education Order.

Angela Smith: No. Consultation on the draft Education (Northern Ireland) Order ended on 7 March. I will carefully consider the responses and whether any changes should be made to the draft order before it is laid before Parliament in the spring.

Sammy Wilson: Despite the Secretary of State's blustering defence of the proposals, the Minister will be aware that in the last consultation 90 per cent. of respondents opposed the proposed changes. Her refusal to accept that view has caused increasing anger. Those changes should be rightly decided by local people in the Assembly, which the Secretary of State is determined to set up, so does she not agree that it is for local people to make that local decision?

Angela Smith: If the hon. Gentleman wants those decisions to be made in a devolved Assembly he knows the route that he must take. While the Assembly is suspended, the Government will make decisions. I fail to understand how academic selection at the age of 11 can be the appropriate way to decide the right pathways to education for young people.

Post-primary Education

Greg Hands: What plans he has to change arrangements for post-primary education in the Province.

Angela Smith: The Government have introduced a number of reforms, including a revised curriculum, an entitlement framework to widen access to academic and vocational courses for all pupils, and new admissions arrangements which will replace academic selection at the age of 11 with a system based on informed parental choice.

Greg Hands: I thank the Minister for her answer, but the Prime Minister has made it clear that he has no intention of scrapping academic selection in parts of the UK where parents want it. Why should Northern Ireland be any different?

Angela Smith: The system to be introduced in Northern Ireland is one of informed parental choice, and the Prime Minister has made it clear that he is in favour of such choice. In Northern Ireland, we have a system in which 40 per cent. of children go to grammar school, yet the majority of the population do not achieve their potential. We will introduce a system that best meets the needs of children, young people and the economy in Northern Ireland. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House must keep quiet so that we can hear the questions and answers.

Animal Welfare Legislation

Mark Pritchard: What changes are proposed to animal welfare legislation in Northern Ireland; and if he will make a statement.

Angela Smith: Department of Agriculture and Rural Development officials are currently finalising a wide-ranging review of animal welfare legislation aimed at identifying measures needed to strengthen powers to deal with animal welfare abuses, and they will consult stakeholders on the review after Easter. The detailed provisions of any new arrangements will depend on the outcome of the review and subsequent consultation, and they will take account of the provisions in the Animal Welfare Bill.

Mark Pritchard: Does the Minister not agree that the law is an animal ass if people in Northern Ireland need a licence to keep a dog but not an alligator? If so, will she tell the House what changes she intends to put in place?

Angela Smith: The hon. Gentleman may be aware that there are measures in place to address the matter. We will examine the increased powers and write to him on that point.

Gregory Campbell: Given the recent revelations about many wild animals being caught in Northern Ireland under obscure circumstances, when will the Minister introduce the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 in Northern Ireland?

Angela Smith: The Minister of State, my noble Friend Lord Rooker, is looking into the matter. We are examining it carefully to see what improvements can be made to existing legislation.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked

Engagements

Sally Keeble: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 15 March.

Tony Blair: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I will have further such meetings later today.

Sally Keeble: Will my right hon. Friend come to Northampton to open the new 5 million police call centre funded by the Labour Government, and to listen to the complaints from my constituents, who will not get their new community police support officers because the funds for them have been cut by Conservative-controlled Northamptonshire county council? Is that compassionate Conservatism or same old Tories, same old cuts?

Tony Blair: Yes, we have supported the new Northamptonshire police call centre. As my hon. Friend says, it is a 5 million state of the art facility that will bring better services to the people in her area and others. That is in addition to extra numbers of police and extra community support officers. That is why it is important that we keep up the investment under Labour, not cut it under the Conservatives.

David Cameron: Everyone in the House will be deeply concerned by what happened yesterday in the Palestinian territories. We understand the extremely difficult situation under which the British monitors were operating at the prison in Jericho, but is the Prime Minister satisfied that the consequences of withdrawing the monitors were properly thought through?

Tony Blair: Yes, I am satisfied about that. The question gives me the opportunity to explain to the House and, indeed, to the country that for the past three months we have been warning the Palestinian Authority that the security of the monitors was at risk and that the procedures at the particular detention centre were not adequate and proper. That culminated last week, on 8 March, in both the US and UK consuls-general jointly writing to President Abbas, making it clear that unless the Palestinian Authority met its obligations, we would have to terminate involvement with the mission with immediate effect. So for months we have been warning about that.
	Let me emphasise to the House that the monitors are unarmed civilians whose roles is not to do the policing and to make sure that people are properly imprisoned, but simply to monitor that the procedures agreed were being implemented. For a very long time they had been saying that the procedures were not being properly implemented, so the idea that the withdrawal was precipitate, uncalled for or not thought through is wrong.

David Cameron: I am grateful for that answer. People will also have been concerned by the attacks on the British Council in the Gaza strip. Can the Prime Minister tell us what steps he is taking today to protect British citizens, buildings and organisations that have been working so hard to help the Palestinian people? Can the Prime Minister tell us whether they were given any advance warning to take extra security precautions yesterday?

Tony Blair: On the last point, I am not sure of the precise precautions that they were told to take, but I know that the matter had been discussed extensively with people, precisely because we were concerned about the situation that might arise. Perhaps I could make one other point. The United Kingdom has been immensely generous in the help that it has given to people in the Palestinian Authority area. We will continue to do everything we can to support the Palestinian people, but there is one issue that must be addressed by the Palestinian Authoritythat is, security on the Palestinian side. If people want progress towards a two-state solution, which we have championedan independent, viable Palestinian state living side by side with Israelthe security within the Palestinian area is of prime concern. We have done everything we can to support them, but we need some help back from the other side. Incidentally, one other thing I should mention is that another reason for our concern was the recent statement from Hamas following the elections in the Palestinian Authority that it intended to release the particular people in that detention centre. I hope that people understand, therefore, that we could not continue with a situation where wholly unarmed people were put at risk.

David Cameron: I am grateful for that answer. Specifically on the issue of Hamas, its election victory and the effect on the funding of the Palestinian Authority, do not the events of the past 24 hours reinforce the need to ensure that Hamas abides by the conditions set down by the international community, which are to recognise Israel, abandon violence and abide by all the previous agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, one of which concerned the running of the Jericho prison?

Tony Blair: It is the case that in addition to the bilateral assistance, which in this financial year amounts to some 36 million, we have also supported the 120 million package from the European Union, so we are giving every support of a humanitarian kind to the Palestinian Authority. The only way that we are ever going to get a peace process beginning again in the middle east is if it is accepted that the solution to which the international community is committeda two-state solutioncan be proceeded with only if both sides accept the existence of the other state. Otherwise, it is extremely difficult to see how we can make progress. One thing should be made very clear again: we totally respect the mandate that Hamas secured in the elections. We supported those democratic elections, we support them still. But if it wants our helpboth financially and politicallyto make progress, it has to be on an understood basis, which means giving up violence, negotiating peacefully and accepting the existence of Israel.

Phyllis Starkey: Yesterday in the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary admitted that he knew that when the UK and US monitors were withdrawn from Jericho, the Israelis would immediately seek to take the prisoners by force, giving the impression across the Palestinian territories of collusion. Given that yesterday the Israeli Government also reiterated their intention unilaterally to seize more Palestinian land by extending the wall, incorporating more illegal settlements into Israel and effectively annexing the Jericho valley, what are the British Government doing now to re-establish their shattered reputation as an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinian Authority?

Tony Blair: I am afraid that I have to disagree with my hon. Friend. Let me just explain the circumstances in which we came to do this monitoring function. We did it under what was called the Ramallah agreement, entered into in 2002, whereby people who were charged with serious offences, including the assassination of Israeli politicians, would be kept in the detention centre and we would monitor their detention. The agreement on both sides, with Israel and with the Palestinian Authority, is that the Palestinians would take charge of the detention, but it would be independently monitored by us. That was the agreement brokered. We have kept to that agreement every inch of the way. We have done the independent monitoring. The breach has been because the proper detention procedures were not being observed on the Palestinian side. I stress to my hon. Friend that three months of saying to the Palestinian Authority, including, last week, directly to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Look, this is a serious situation, you have to act, is evidence of our good faith, not our bad faith. I repeat to my hon. Friend, I think it is important that the message sent out from this country, is that we stand ready to take this process forward and to help in any way we can, but it has to be on the basis that agreements entered into are adhered to by everybody.

Menzies Campbell: The Prime Minister will remember that six years ago the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, South-West (Mr. Darling) then the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, now the Secretary of State for Transport, told the House that his Department should give accurate and complete information about pensions.

Eric Forth: Declare your interest.

Menzies Campbell: If the Chancellor of the Exchequer ever gets round to accepting Adair Turner's proposals, it will be some time before I get a pension.
	The former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions also said that if someone lost out because of inaccurate information, the Government should offer redress as a matter of principle. What happened to that principle?

Tony Blair: It is partly in recognition of it that we established both the Pension Protection Fund and the financial assistance scheme, so that for the first time there will be help for people whose pension schemes have been wound up. I accept and understand entirely the sense of loss, anger and anxiety of those who have lost pensions for which they have paid for many, many years, but we have been asked to give, on behalf of the taxpayer, a 15 billion commitment and we simply cannot do that in circumstances where the reason for the loss is the collapse of the pension schemes themselves.

Menzies Campbell: What is the point of an independent ombudsman and a report which makes recommendations when the Government will not accept the conclusions? Does not the Prime Minister understand that if the Government fail to offer compensation it will operate only as a further diminution of public confidence in pensions?

Tony Blair: Except that, as I said to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, although of course we must and do treat seriously the ombudsman's findings, we are being asked as a consequence of them to give, on behalf of general taxpayers 15 billion-worth of commitment. We simply cannot do that. There is a review of the financial assistance scheme, which may be able to help some people, and we will expedite that review and do it as quickly as we possibly can, but it has to be understood that, in the end, if we were to stand liable for the whole of that loss, it would set a precedent of extraordinary financial proportions for this Government and any other.

Chris Mullin: As regards the Education and Inspections Bill, how does my right hon. Friend respond to those who argue that a proliferation of foundation schools directly contradicts the advice in last year's White Paper, Every Child Matters, which calls for schools and other agencies to work more closely together to secure a better education for all our children?

Tony Blair: It is precisely because we understand concerns about selection and the possibility of new selection that we have strengthened admissions procedures so that schools have to act in accordance with the code, rather than have regard to it, so that local authorities have the ability to appeal when an admissions policy is breached and so that the admissions forum is strengthened. All those things will mean that, yes, schools will have the freedom and independence we want for them, but within a system of fair funding and fair admissions. I say to my hon. Friend that if people want that strengthened admissions code and procedure, the only way to get it is to vote for the Bill.

James Paice: The Rural Payments Agency had a target to pay 96 per cent. of farmers by the end of March, which was already 18 months since their last payment. Last week, Lord Bach said that the figure should be more than 50 per cent. Has the Prime Minister any understanding of the anger and financial distress of tens of thousands of farmers who are fending off their creditors because of the Government's incompetence?

Tony Blair: Yes, I understand the concern. That is why the Rural Payments Agency is working extremely hard to make up the time and to make sure that farmers receive their payments. But I entirely understand their concern; we are working on the matter as hard as we can.

Charlotte Atkins: Everyone in Staffordshire has spoken with one voice to keep Staffordshire ambulance service independent so that it can deliver the fastest response times, save the most lives at the cheapest cost and keep the best-trained community first responders. Further to the Prime Minister's answer to me on 12 October, can he assure me that Staffordshire ambulance service will be able to maintain its uniquely successful management system, rather than adopting the less successful practices of the other west midlands ambulance services?

Tony Blair: I understand entirely the case that my hon. Friend and other colleagues from Staffordshire are making. As I understand it, there is a 14-week consultation, led by the strategic health authorities, which will end on 22 March. I can assure my hon. Friend that the outcome of the consultation exercise is not a foregone conclusion. No decision has been made, or will be, until the conclusion of the consultation. I can also assure her that all responses, including hers, will be very carefully considered indeed.

David Cameron: Is not the real answer to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) that the evidence shows that schools with greater freedom over budgets, pay, staff, buildings, curriculum and admissions achieve better results? Does the Prime Minister agree that everyone who wants to see greater parental choice and less interference by LEAs and independent schools within the state sector should vote for the Bill tonight?

Tony Blair: Of course I agree that it is important that schools have the freedom to manage their own budgets, staff, buildings and so on, but on this side, we do not agree that selection between schools is the answer. If the right hon. Gentleman is so keen on supporting the education legislation tonight, why has he only got a two-line Whip for his Members, and why is he trying to delay the Bill by voting against the programme motion? On 14 December, he asked me to speed up the Education and Inspections Bill; on 25 January, he said to me, Why don't you get on with it?; in February, he asked for an undertaking that there would be no delay; and this evening, he is going to vote to delay the Bill by voting against the programme motion.

David Cameron: I'll tell you what: you worry about whipping your side, and I'll worry about whipping mine. I will support the Government's education reforms, but I do not support the undermining of Parliament. Trust schools give businesses, voluntary groups, faith organisations and others the chance to start new schools and to operate existing ones. In the past, the Prime Minister has said that he would like all schools to become trust schools. Is that still his ambition?

Tony Blair: Of course I want schools to become trust schools, which is why we are introducing the Bill. [Interruption.] It will be for schools to decide, which is what the Bill says. Let me come back to the right hon. Gentleman's explanation of why he is voting against the programme motion tonight, and what is more Punch and Judy than that? If he wants this Bill to go throughhe has said that I should not delay itwhy has he not got his Members voting unanimously tonight, and why is he voting against the programme motion? [Interruption.] Well, let me tell him why that is and why he has got a two-line Whip. In the Bill, there is stronger protection against selection, there is a prohibition on interviews for admissions, there is a stronger admissions forum, there are tougher powers for LEAs to intervene in poor and failing schools and there is power for local authorities to give free school meals to all their pupils. Those are all good reasonsno wonder he is hesitating, but we should not.

David Cameron: The Prime Minister is going to need to spend a bit more time talking to his colleagues rather than shouting at me. He is being ridiculous, because he knows that we do not support routine programme motions. We believe in parliamentary scrutinyI know that the Prime Minister probably cannot even spell those words, but we happen to think that it is important. Why is a Prime Minister with a majority of 70 struggling to explain to his own MPs why we need to reform our schools?

Tony Blair: First, let me deal with the right hon. Gentleman's extraordinary contention that he is voting against the programme motion because it is routine to do so. I have here a list of 22 Bills this parliamentary Session in which he has not opposed the programme motion. Why is he opposing the programme motion tonight? He is opposing the programme motion for the same reason he has got the two-line Whipthe reasons why people should support the Bill are to do with equity and fair admissions, which are reasons that he cannot get his side to accept.

Sandra Osborne: The Prime Minister is aware that I have been campaigning for some time on behalf of my constituents and others who have lost their pensions. Does he agree that those affected are not looking for a handout but their own money back, which they saved on Government advice? Will the Prime Minister give full consideration to the ombudsman's report, which seems to be being dismissed out of hand at the moment? Will he have discussions with the trade union community and Amicus on their European action with a view to finding a solution to this?

Tony Blair: Of course, I entirely understand that if people have lost the pension entitlement that they built up over many years, they will be extremely worried and angry about that. The question, however, is the degree to which the Government have to stand guarantor. It is precisely because of the concerns that were raised that we introduced the Pension Protection Fund and the financial assistance scheme. The difficulty is that if we end up saying, as the ombudsman would like us to, that we stand surety for all that money, it is a 15 billion bill, and I honestly cannot commit the Government, or any Government, to that.

Lee Scott: What encouragement will the Prime Minister give to the Ilford, North and Redbridge-based Drugsline Chabad on its 15 years of excellent work in tackling the problems of drug and alcohol abuse? Will he congratulate it on its new pilot scheme involving the Jewish and Muslim communities, showing how that can benefit the entire community of London? Will the Prime Minister please encourage it?

Tony Blair: I am happy to offer that encouragement and to congratulate it on its excellent work over 15 years; long may it continue.

Helen Jones: As today may be a somewhat challenging day for the Prime Minister, can I cheer him up by suggesting a policy that would be very popular? If he rejects the moves by the big supermarkets to deregulate Sunday trading, he would be supporting families, protecting small businesses, and pleasing the Churches, and he would get the enthusiastic support of Labour Members. Can he think of any reasons for not doing that?

Tony Blair: As my hon. Friend probably knows, the Department of Trade and Industry is conducting a review of the Sunday trading rules. It is right to consider these issues because a great deal has changed in the 12 years since the restrictions were put in place. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is meeting the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers to listen to its concerns. If my hon. Friend wishes to make today less challenging for me, the remedy is in her own hands.

Little Havens Hospice (Castle Point)

Bob Spink: If he will visit Little Havens children's hospice in Castle Point to see the work of professionals and volunteers and to discuss funding.

Tony Blair: I have no current plans to do so, but I should like to pay tribute to the work done by Little Havens children's hospice in Castle Point.

Bob Spink: I am grateful for that. The whole House will want to join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to everyone who works in and supports the hospice movement. We acknowledge the extra cash that has been put into the national health service, but what has happened to that cash? Children's hospices, on average, get only 5 per cent. of their funding from the NHS. Little Havens gets less than 2 per cent. Will the Prime Minister meet a delegation from the children's hospice movement to discuss the funding of our terminally ill children? Is he aware of the high level of public concern about this issue, as demonstrated by the

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has put his point across.

Tony Blair: I am aware of the hospice movement and all the work that it does, and I want to underline my congratulations to it. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there has been substantial additional investment in the national health service, as well as from the lottery fundI know that Little Havens benefited from that. We are looking to see what more we can do for palliative care in all sorts of different ways. I am of course always happy to meet representatives of the movement.

Engagements

Lembit �pik: Is the Prime Minister aware that it is now more than 10 years since Private Cheryl James died at Deepcut Army barracks, but her parents, Des and Doreen, still do not know how or why? Last Friday, the Surrey coroner, Michael Burgess, concluded his inquest into James Collinson, who also died at Deepcut. He said that the Ministry of Defence
	should take whatever steps are necessary to restore public confidence in the recruitment and training of young soldiers whether at Deepcut or elsewhere
	and that
	they have nothing to fear from an inquiry held in public . . . where the various issues . . . can be explored in greater depth.
	I simply ask the Prime Minister to agree to meet the parents of the four deceased Deepcut recruits, once Nicholas Blake has completed his inquiry, to hear their views on the matter.

Tony Blair: I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands that the report by Nicholas Blake QC has not yet been finalised. I understand that it will be finalised at the end of the month and I cannot comment further until we have received his findings.

Shona McIsaac: I want to ask the Prime Minister about the only direct bus link from Grimsby and Cleethorpes to Hull, which is about to be withdrawn because the Humber bridge board refuses to offer toll concessions for public transport. That is causing great concern to the residents of Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Is not it totally out of kilter with Government policy on promoting public transport, especially when that is the only way that many residents

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister has got the point.

Tony Blair: I am not entirely sure that I have. The Humber bridge board has applied to the Secretary of State for Transport to increase tolls in line with inflation. The application was considered at a public inquiry on 7 February and my right hon. Friend will consider the inquiry inspector's report and announce his decision in due course. I entirely understand the concerns that my hon. Friend raises, but the matter must be considered in the context of overall funding and the tolls for the bridge.

Quentin Davies: Does the Prime Minister share my revulsion at the fact that this is the only country in the world that calls itself a democracy where it appears that one can buy one's way into the legislature simply by giving a lot of money to one of the three major parties? Is not it time to bring that squalid system and all suspicion of it definitively to an end?

Tony Blair: I simply point out that we are the party and the Government who introduced transparency into party funding. It is, of course, important, and no doubt it will be debated in the context of House of Lords reform.

Iraq

Jeremy Corbyn: What discussions he has had with President Bush on the deployment of US and British troops in Iraq.

Tony Blair: I regularly have discussions on a wide range of issues, including the deployment of US and British troops in Iraq, with President Bush.

Jeremy Corbyn: Does the Prime Minister recognise that this weekend is the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by British and American troops, that 2,000 American soldiers and more than 100 British soldiers have sadly lost their lives, and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died? Does not he think that it is time to set a date for the withdrawal of British and American troops from Iraq to end the occupation and the growing scandal of the huge profits that British and American companies are making from reconstruction? Does he accept that the continued presence represents more of a problem than a solution?

Tony Blair: It is correct that American and British soldiers and civilians have died in Iraq. They died in the course of an attempt by those engaged in terrorism and acts of violence to stop the country getting democracy. My hon. Friend referred to an occupation. We have been there for two and a half years under a UN mandate and with the full consent of the first ever democratically elected Iraqi Government. Twelve million Iraqi people voted in their electionwith a higher turnout than here, the US or most European countries. They voted for democracythey want democracy. Discussions are going on between all the partiesSunni, Shi'a, Kurdsto try to form a Government of national unity. People are trying to stop them through acts of terrorism. What do we do? Do we walk away and let those who want the bomb and terrorist acts to determine the future of Iraq win or do we stand up for and alongside the 12 million people who voted for democracy and say, These are values we share and support, and we're prepared to fight for them?

Engagements

David Heath: To revert to the question about the Government not implementing recommendations from the ombudsman, does the Prime Minister recall telling the Labour party conference in 1997:
	I don't want to live in a country where the only way pensioners can get long term care is by selling their home?
	Scandalously, nine years later in England, that is still the case. Does the Prime Minister intend to retire soon to Scotland where it is not?

Tony Blair: First, let me point out to the hon. Gentleman that, through our support for pensioners through the pension credit, the Government are spending about 10 billion extra a year for today's pensioners. Secondly, we have introduced the Pension Protection Fund and the financial assistance scheme. We are doing all that we can to help current and future pensioners. I come back, however, to the choice that we face. I know that, because it is a difficult decision, the Liberal Democrats will not want to face up to it. Either we say that we will pay out on behalf of the general taxpayer 15 billion, or we have to look for another way of dealing with the issue, and I do not think that we can afford to do that.

Si�n Simon: Last year, College high school in Erdington federated and doubled its GCSE rate to 24 per cent. I am told that that can cause chaos in all the other local schools, throwing their admissions and staff recruitment all over the place. Should we just leave it at that? Is it good enough under a Labour Government that only a quarter of working class kids get a half-decent basic education? Should we just leave it where it is?

Tony Blair: No, we should not. My hon. Friend is right to say that there has been tremendous progress in the last eight or nine years. Let us not forget that, when we came to office in 1997, funding per pupil was being cut under the previous Tory Government. Since then, we have increased tenfold the investment in our schools and seen increases in results at ages 11, 16 and 18. However, my hon. Friend is right: that is not good enough while any child does not get the education that they need. It is for that reason that, alongside the investment, come the change and reform. Specialist schools and city academies are already making a difference, and the Education and Inspections Bill will give us the chance to ensure that every child, whatever their circumstances or background, gets the chance to succeed. That is why it is a Labour Bill, and it should be supported by Labour Members.

Point of Order

Anne McIntosh: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. At column 1391 of today's Hansard, I am reported as having participated in the debate on the Animal Welfare Bill, talking about elephants, poodles and alligators. I can assure you that I made no such comments, and that they should rightfully have been attributed to the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac). I wonder whether that could be corrected.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I should say to the hon. Lady that it is always advisable to check one's speeches afterwards

Anne McIntosh: But I did not make one.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am answering the hon. Lady's point of order for the benefit of the whole House. Obviously, if the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) had checked her speech, she would have known that there was a problem. I thank the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) for raising the matter. I am sure that due note has been taken by the Official Report and that that correction will be made.

Water and Sewerage Charges (Limit on Household Expenditure)

Adrian Sanders: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a limit on the percentage of household income spent on water and sewerage charges; to provide for the capping of domestic water and sewerage charges so that the percentage limit is not exceeded; and for connected purposes.
	Water and sewerage charges have increased by an average of 48 per cent. in real terms across the country since privatisation in 1989. The increase is an alarming 85 per cent. in the far south-west, mostly due to South West Water having some of the largest infrastructure and environment protection liabilities falling on one of the smallest customer bases. Indeed, the sewerage element of the water bill in the south-west has increased by over 100 per cent.
	Failure at the time of privatisation to protect customers in areas where disproportionate charges would have to fall under market conditions, and inaction since, have compounded a problem first identified 30 years ago, and the situation is not set to get any better. Presently, households in Devon and Cornwall on fixed and low incomes are finding the 449 average South West Water bill too much to accommodate. Many people in the south-west are spending more than 3 per cent. of their disposable income on water and sewerage bills alone. That situation is unsustainable. It is projected that bills in the south-west will, on average, be 675 within the next four years. That is not only unjust but a wholly disproportionate burden, especially in the context of the low average incomes in the far south-west. In my constituency people earn 23 per cent. less per week than the United Kingdom average, yet their water bills are 33 per cent. higher than the average. The greatest burden is falling on those who are least able to carry it.
	Water poverty is defined as spending more than 3 per cent. of disposable income on water bills. Nationally this year, nearly 10 per cent. of households were in water poverty, and that is set to rise. It is estimated that by 2010, 40 per cent. of the lowest quintile of earners will be spending more than 3 per cent. of their disposable income on water. Families and pensioners should not have to fear the next water bill to arrive, and worry about how it is to be paid.
	Those figures are unacceptable. More than 21 per cent. of average-income households in the south-west spend more than 3 per cent. of their income on water and sewerage. That is only the burden on the average household; the position of pensioners, families and vulnerable groups is much worse. In Devon and Cornwall, pensioners spend more than 6.5 per cent. of their incomes on water and sewerage before they find the money to pay their council tax, electricity bills and escalating gas bills.
	As we know, the council tax protests started in Devon as a result of what were considered to be high council tax charges. A campaign began, with people withholding some of the increase in their council tax. As the Government are well aware, 75 per cent. of a local authority's income comes from central Government and not the council tax payer. An enormous number of people would have to withhold council tax for it to have any impact on local Government services.
	There has recently been talk of a similar campaign over water charges. As 100 per cent. of the charge funds the company, not many consumers would need to withhold a proportion of their payment for its share price to plummet. Who would be there to pick up the pieces if a water company went into liquidation following the cutting off of its income stream by its own customers? The Government would have to intervene to deal with the chaos caused by lack of water and sewerage supplies. That is why the issue demands the Government's attention.
	Pension and benefit rates are supposed to reflect essential outgoings such as payment for water and heat, but national rates do not reflect regional variations. Many reasons and excuses are given for that regional disparity, but there seems to be no willingness to change. The far south-west must bear most of the burden of cleaning up the nation's coastline: 3 per cent. of the population pay for the cleaning of 30 per cent. of it. Just under 10 million tourists visit the area each year, and local people must accept the knock-on cost throughout the year in the form of higher water charges. Projects in other regions also have an impact on their water billsfor instance, the renovation of Victorian infrastructureyet their bills are not increasing by as much as 10 per cent. a year.
	There are a number of ways of helping customers who are stuck in this situation. First, there is water bill equalisation. The precedent in Northern Ireland demonstrates that the Government are willing to consider fairer charging, and a similar method could be introduced in the rest of the United Kingdom. The Consumer Council for Water has said that the circumstances of Northern Ireland and the far south-west are identical in terms of low population, lower incomes and huge coastlines.
	Under the scheme in Northern Ireland, the water bills of some 200,000 households will be capped at no more than 3 per cent. of their incomes. That will not just help pensioners and those claiming benefits; all households will pay an average of 30 less, and some bills could be as low as 60.
	The principle has also been tested north of the border, in relation to electricity bills. Customers in the north of Scotland were burdened with high bills, due to geographical circumstances that increased the cost of distributing electricity. To reduce this unfair burden, subsidies were put in place, saving the average bill-payer 27 a year and keeping 15 per cent. more people out of fuel poverty. That situation sounds remarkably similar to that of the people of the far south-west: geographical circumstances resulting in a higher utility charge.
	Another option is a payment similar to the winter fuel payment to help pensioners stay out of water poverty. Pensioners are the group worst hit by high water and sewerage charges, and they would benefit most from support. However, such a payment to all pensioners would not target those who need supportthose whose water and sewerage bills exceed 3 per cent. of their income.
	So there are many mechanisms that the Government could consider, and which they have shown a willingness to implement in other contexts. They should have a duty of care to ensure that nobody in the United Kingdom lives in water poverty. More than 30 years have elapsed since the problem of disproportionate water charges was first identified, and it is more than a quarter of a century since legislation was introduced in this House to deal with it; sadly, it was repealed prior to privatisation. It is time that action be taken. This issue should not have to come before the House again in 30 years' time.

Eric Forth: This is a piece of typical Liberal nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense and the kind of thing that we have come to expect from the muddled thinking of the Liberal Democrats. I thought that we had many legitimate concerns these days about water supply. In fact, a current concern here in the south-eastand, I suspect, in other parts of our countryis that the water supply is in some danger, so we should be very careful when discussing the delicate balance that inevitably must exist between consumption of water, the price charged for it, security of supply and future security of supply. The Bill would interfere with all that in a very negative and unhelpful way.
	This is a very obvious populist pitch by a rather desperate political party, but we must not be seduced by that, must we? We must remain focused on the vital necessity of ensuring that the relationship between water consumers and suppliers remains properly balanced. I, being a great believer in the marketas the Liberal Democrats used to be but seem not to be any morebelieve that the price mechanism is still the best means of maintaining that balance. We have to ensure that water suppliers can achieve enough revenue and be sufficiently profitable to invest in security and cleanliness of supply, and to address the environmental concerns that rank so highly these days, not least in respect of sewerage, which the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) mentioned.
	I fail to understand how on earth the artificial limit on the amount that can be charged for water that the hon. Gentleman is arguing for would allow us to achieve security and cleanliness of supply. If revenue is arbitrarily limited, investment will inevitably be limitedunless the Liberal Democrats believe that the difference should be made up by the taxpayer. Perhaps they are prepared to contemplate passing on that additional burden to the taxpayer, turning the clock back to the bad old days when we had insufficient investment in the water and sewerage infrastructure. But I doubt whether anyone, except, perhaps, the Liberal Democrats, would deny that under the new regime we have seen a dramatic and consistent increase in investment in our water supply, for which we should allhouseholders and other domestic consumers, business and industrial consumersbe very grateful. That would be put at risk if we were to succumb to the argument that the hon. Gentleman made. I am sure that if right hon. and hon. Members were to study the terms of the Bill, they would find it completely unacceptable because it would destroy the relationship that has been built up very carefully between consumers and producers, which provides the investment necessary to ensure that our water supply is continued as we would wish.
	A ready resort to capping or limitation cannot be the answer. There may be other answers, and the hon. Gentleman hinted at some of the other approaches that he might favour. However, they are not included in the Bill and, therefore, he undermined the argument for his Bill not only by failing to make the case for it, but by distracting our attention to other possibilities. I hope that the House will not support the Bill and that we hear no more about it.
	Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Adrian Sanders, Andrew George, Matthew Taylor, Mr. Dan Rogerson, Julia Goldsworthy, Mr. Colin Breed, Mr. Gary Streeter, Mr. Geoffrey Cox, Mr. Anthony Steen, Angela Browning, Richard Younger-Ross and Nick Harvey.

Water and Sewerage Charges (Limit on Household Expenditure)

Mr. Adrian Sanders accordingly presented a Bill to establish a limit on the percentage of household income spent on water and sewerage charges; to provide for the capping of domestic water and sewerage charges so that the percentage limit is not exceeded; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 17 March, and to be printed [Bill 147].

Orders of the Day
	  
	Education and Inspections Bill

[Relevant documents: The First Report from the Education and Skills Committee, Session 200506, HC 633, The Schools White Paper: Higher Standards, Better Schools for All, and the Government's reply thereto, Cm 6747.]
	Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before I call the Secretary of State, I must announce to the House that I have not selected the reasoned amendment in the name of the leader of the Liberal Democrat party. I have also placed an eight-minute limit on Back Benchers' speeches.

Ruth Kelly: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	Today, I set out before the House a Bill whose very heart and purpose is to give every childno matter who they are or where they come fromthe opportunity to fulfil their potential. I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House will want to make interventions as we go along. I have spent manymainly happyhours debating these issues with my hon. Friends and other hon. Members over the past few months, and I will be generous. But with the permission of the House, I will make some introductory remarks before I outline the main provisions in the Bill, after which point I will be happy to take many interventions.
	Last month, the parliamentary Labour party celebrated its 100-year anniversary. Every party has played a part in progress towards where we are now, but it is Labour Governments who have delivered the key reforms, backed by the investment that was so badly needed. We brought in comprehensive education, it was a Labour Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, who 25 years ago led the debate on the national curriculum, and this Labour Government introduced free nursery places for all three and four-year-olds.
	Almost nine years into this Labour Government, spending on school buildings has increased sevenfold, there are 30,000 more teachers and more than 100,000 more support staff in our schools. Thanks to our sustained investment and reform, our children have been doing better, but we must do more. Yes, we have record results at ages 11 and 14 and at GCSE, but still 45 per cent. of children do not get five good GCSEs. Yes, schools in deprived areas have improved even more quickly than the rest, but still seven out of 10 pupils on free school meals do not get five good GCSEs. Yes, we have record numbers of our young people staying on to study at A-level, but we still have one of the worst staying-on rates at age 16 of any country in the industrialised world. If Britain is going to go forward in the new global economy, I say to this House that that is simply not good enough. We must do better.
	That is what this Bill is about. For the first time, it puts a duty on local authorities to fulfil the educational potential not just of the bright or easy-to-teach child, but of every child. In addition, for the first time in the history of this country, this Bill introduces a right to a high-quality vocational education for every young person from the age of 14, reversing the historic weakness in vocational provision.
	If we want every school to be a good school, and that is our aim, we must act to make it happen, not just hope that it will. This Bill, through its proposals on trust schools, increased local authority intervention powers and stronger pressure to improve, does just that.
	I turn now to the proposals in the Bill on trusts, one of the matters raised with me most frequently over the past few months. Every hon. Member knows that schools work best when they have an effective head teacher who gives strong and inspiring leadership. This Bill will build on what we know works. It will give heads the powers that they need to forge new partnerships and drive up standards in their schools. Therefore, trust school status will allow head teachers to work closely with other schools, with colleges and with external partners such as universities, charities and business foundations, bringing new energy and commitment to the education of pupils at the school.
	Some people, including some Opposition Members, have argued that all schools should be compelled to become trust schools. However, I can tell the House that I will never force any school to become a trust school.

Louise Ellman: I am pleased to hear the Secretary of State make it clear that she will not force existing schools to become trust schools, and I should like her to confirm that. However, she has moved away from her initial statement that there would be no new local authority schools to suggesting that there could be new local authority schools, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. What criteria would underlie that approval? How can she convince me and others that the change is more than a change in wording and is, indeed, a change in substance?

Ruth Kelly: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I know that she takes this issue especially seriously, and she is right to point out that the Government have, quite properly, made a move in that respect. Some Labour Members, and other colleagues in local government, have made the case very strongly that, where parents want a new community school because they think that that is in their children's best interests, we should not prevent them from having one. It is right that there should be a route for new community schools, but we must make sure that local authorities really think through what is in children's best interests. However, I can tell my hon. Friend that the Secretary of State will, of course, allow local authorities that have done that thinking and that have a good track record to put forward such a proposals.

Kevan Jones: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that her Department will not prevent community schools by the back door, as it were, by starving them of resources? That has happened before, with plans for new schools being rejected unless they have an academy.

Ruth Kelly: I can certainly give that assurance. Trust schools will be funded on exactly the same basis as any other local authority maintained school, because they are local authority maintained schools. I will not use my office to force local authorities to go down a route that they do not wish to go down. I will never force any school that does not want to become a trust school to adopt trust status.

David Blunkett: In relation to the establishment of wholly new schools, will my right hon. Friend confirm that it will be possible to use the corporate performance assessment, the Audit Commission's quality assessment, to vary the approach of the Secretary of State to propositions developed at local level? Those with a high-quality assessment rating would therefore be exempt from intervention by the Secretary of State, on the principle of intervention in proportion to success.

Ruth Kelly: I understand the very interesting proposition put forward by my right hon. Friend. The CPA criterion that he suggests as an objective measure of whether a new community school should be allowed is a potential answer to the problem, and I can assure hon. Members that the use of the Secretary of State's power will be based on objective criteria that can be judged and scrutinised by the House. However, I am not convinced that the CPA is precisely fit for purpose. For example, a local authority might not perform very well according to that assessment, but might also be improving its educational performance very rapidly. In such cases, it might make sense for a new community school to be proposed. That is precisely the sort of matter that I shall want to discuss further in Committee.

Angela Eagle: rose

Sarah Teather: rose

Phil Willis: rose

Ruth Kelly: I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), and then to the hon. Members for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) and for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis).

Angela Eagle: I thank my right hon. Friend. Many colleagues on this side of the House have been worried about the concept of trust schools, and especially because of the ethical and financial probity of the sort of organisations that may get involved in such schools. We all seek reassurance about that. As the Bill goes through its Committee and Report stages, will she think about introducing an approved list of those who could bid to become involved in trusts?

Ruth Kelly: My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I can tell the House that there will be very strong safeguards to prevent the acquisition of inappropriate trusts. That is essential. As a result, they will be regulated by the Charity Commission as well as by the local authority. They will be funded by the local authority, which will be able to object on educational grounds to any trust that it thinks will damage children's educational standards. However, perhaps the most important safeguard will be the common sense of parents and governing bodies. They will decide whether it is in a school's interest to adopt a particular trust. Moreover, I can reassure my hon. Friend about how that accountability will be reinforced. It should be possible to remove a trust if the non-trust governors on a governing bodyparents, local community representatives and staffdecide that that should happen because the relationship has broken down.

Sarah Teather: The Secretary of State said that she would not force community schools to become trust schools. However, if it is such a great deal, can she explain why only 23 secondary schools and one primary school have expressed an interest in becoming trust schools? Those figures were contained in the Government's response to my request under the freedom of information legislation.

Ruth Kelly: I can tell the hon. Lady that I have spoken to dozens of schools that are interested in becoming trust schools. Only this morning, one head teacher wrote to The Guardian and said:
	This is about putting the interests of pupils first, to raise standards and improve outcomes for all. That is why we have such a strong commitment to collaborating with others.
	The author of that letter said that he thought that it was his school's duty to consider adopting a trust. Where schools want to raise standards and see opportunities for doing so within the local authority framework, they ought to be able to do just that.

Clive Betts: On potential inducements to schools to become trusts, there is an element of suspicion about the Waltheof school in the constituency of the Minister for Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), to which children from my constituency go. It has been made clear to the local authority and the local community that unless they accept an academy, there will be no money for a new school. That was the inducement. Will she say explicitly that there will be no inducements or pressures on schools to become trusts schools? Will she extend that commitment to the future provision of academies, so that that sort of pressure is not put on local authorities to accept, with the obvious proviso being that they will not get the money unless they do?

Ruth Kelly: I can give my hon. Friend the commitment that there will be no financial inducement for schools to become trusts schools. They will not benefit from any additional capital or from any additional revenue funding. They will be funded by the local authority under the local authority distribution formula, which is then agreed locally by heads. That is the way in which the system will operate because trust schools are local authority schools and operate within the local authority framework. My hon. Friend has an issue about academies, but it is important that authorities think through from first principles on how to raise standards for children. However, I can give him the assurance he is seeking on trusts schools.

David Gauke: A few weeks ago in the White Paper, the Government's position was that there should be no new community schools. Under intense pressure from their Back Benchers, they now say that there can be new community schools subject to a veto. When the pressure dissipates after the Bill is passed, what is to stop the Secretary of State, or indeed any of her successors, changing her mind, going back to the White Paper position and vetoing any new proposals for community schools? Some of us think that that would be a very good idea. Will the Government go back to where they were with the White Paper?

Ruth Kelly: Clearly, the hon. Gentleman has not been seeking the views of his local government colleagues. He only has to ask Alison King, the Tory chair of the Local Government Association's children and young people's board, what she thinks about the proposals for new community schools. She has been arguing that there should be a route for new community schools to be established because that is what is right. I have told the House that the Secretary of State's judgment will be based on objective criteria. We will have that debate in Committee, where we will examine exactly what the best criteria should be.

Andrew Dismore: I hope that my right hon. Friend will continue to encourage trust schools. As a former sceptic about city academies, I think that we need to look at the evidence. The evidence of the London academy in my constituency is that since September 2004, GCSE passes are up by 9 per cent. and A-levels by 40 per cent. The academy is now in the top 5 per cent. of schools nationally in terms of progress for 11 to 14-year-olds and in the top 3 per cent for 14 to 16-year-olds on the same intake as it had before. It is now over-subscribed twice over. Some 45 per cent. of the pupils are entitled to free school meals and more than half are from minority ethnic groups

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. One page was enough.

Ruth Kelly: My hon. Friend was making a very important contribution, because academies can be vital in raising standards for children in under-achieving schoolsthe worst schools in the country, sometimeswho face the most challenging circumstances. Last year, on average, academies improved the results at GCSE at three times the national average, which is why our commitment to introduce 200 academies by 2010 is so important.

Margaret Moran: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the majority of secondary and college heads in my constituency to whom I have spoken about the trusts and the freedoms proposed by the Bill warmly welcomes them, particularly the additional freedoms? Is she also aware that my LEA is putting forward proposals for two academies in conjunction with our beacon status college, Barnfield college? Does she agree that that will assure parents and heads that we have good quality academies coming forward and that we will be able to raise standards in the two failing schools involved in those proposals?

Ruth Kelly: I agree. Trust schools will be another route that schools might want to consider if they think there is an external partner that could help them to raise standards. That external partner might well be another school. Recently, we had a presentation in Downing street from a group of head teachers who are already working in successful schools, but are helping to drive up standards in schools that are performing less well. That is why federations will be such an important way of raising standards for children and one example of where trusts might well come to be of great benefit.

Linda Gilroy: On the question of schools collaborating to have a trust, I welcome the statement that my right hon. Friend has just made. May I ask her to go further and confirm that that will entail looking at the league tables and performance measurement of whole collaboratives, not just individual schools?

Ruth Kelly: I agree that collaboration is important. In effect, I see adopting a trust as a way of forging deeper collaboration between schools within the local authority system. For example, if a group of schools decided that they wanted to introduce the 14 new specialised diplomas, mixing vocational and academic studies, they might want to establish a permanent relationship, share staff, set up new facilities and bring in outside experts to help. Our proposal is one way to achieve that.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) points to how we will have accountability measures that will affect the proposal. First, the Bill introduces a new duty to secure the educational potential not just of the average child, but of every child, taking a real step forward in making sure that all local authorities concentrate on the difficult to reach children and not the easy to reach children. Secondly, my hon. Friend is right about progression. That, too, is important and we are looking at whether we should introduce progression measures to see how children fare after they leave school, as well as when they are at school. These are all issues that complement the five GCSE external accountability measure that is so important for our young people.

Angela Smith: I welcome what my right hon. Friend has just said about collaborative trust working. Does she think that such working mayindeed, shouldencourage employers to work effectively and properly with local authorities and schools in developing career pathways for our young people?

Ruth Kelly: I do, and that is an important point. Getting right the careers information, advice and guidance to our young people is so important and was the key element looked at by the Women and Work Commission. I am very concerned that our young people may be pigeon-holed into studying one type of option rather than another, and may not be aware of the significance of the choices that they make early in the school system. Schools must collaborate to deliver real choices within the school system.

Phil Willis: One of the things that concerns me and my colleagues is the issue of double standards when it comes to assessing the suitability of an organisation to develop a new school. The right hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that local authorities should prove their fitness for purpose in terms of developing a new community school. Yet it appears that by putting down 2 million, a crackpot creationist will be able to open a new school and develop an appropriate curriculum. Where in the Bill are the criteria to determine the suitability of organisations other than LEAs to open and develop new schools?

Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that we do not want inappropriate trusts to work with our schoolsthat is not what the Bill is about at alland I have said that trusts will operate within a strong framework of accountability, where local authorities can object to a trust, where parents and governing bodies do not have to work with a trust at all and can remove a trust if they think that the relationship is not working, and where they are within the Ofsted inspection regime.
	Of course, I will issue guidance for decision makersschool governing bodiesto take into account when they consider whether a trust is the right one for them. The schools commissioner, based in Whitehall, will advise schools on the track record of trusts, so that they take those decisions in the full knowledge of what will work for children, but the Bill is about enabling schools that see an opportunity to do the best that they can for their children.
	What I cannot accept for a moment is that there should be top universities in our country cheek by jowl with some of our most struggling schools and that they should not be asked to commit to the future of those schools. If we can get universities, further education colleges and public and voluntary sector institutions to commit to the future of our schoolsnot just on an ad hoc basis, which may or may not last for a few years, but on a permanent basiswe have a real chance of making a difference to school standards.

David Willetts: I very much agree with the point that the Secretary of State makes about trusts encouraging co-operation between universities and schools, but will she clarify a point about trusts' access to possible extra funds? If a foundation has a trust behind it and that trust has finance from other sources, will the trust school be able to access extra funds via the trust?

Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman makes a point that is relevant to any community school that is working with a specialist school partner, but the Bill is not about financial gain and it is nothing to do with money; it is about expertise, skills and commitment, to help to raise standards in our schools. As the hon. Gentleman said that he wants to encourage collaboration, can he tell me why the Conservative party has consistently tried to characterise our policy of introducing trust schools as a return to the failed old Tory policy of grant-maintained schools?
	Grant-maintained schools were bribed to opt out of local authority control. They were unaccountable to parents or the local community and able to select their pupils. They were schools for the elite, of the elite. Our new trust schools are completely different from Tory grant-maintained schools. Our schools are at the heart of their communities and are accountable to parents, with fair funding, fair admissions, collaboration with external partners and with one another to raise standards, while working within a stronger local authority framework.

Andrew Turner: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Ruth Kelly: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, whom I know will vote in favour of reducing academic selection.

Andrew Turner: The right hon. Lady mentions fair funding. Can she explain why, since 2000, the gap between the best-funded primary school pupils and the worst funded has increased in Somerset by 90 per cent., in Southwark by 135 per cent. and in Isle of Wight by 46 per cent.all authorities under Liberal Democrat control? Why has that happened?

Ruth Kelly: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman makes the point about Liberal Democrat authorities. The Government are giving more resources than ever before to deprived schools and deprived children, and we intend to continue to do so. Under the Bill and as proposed in the White Paper, we will spend an extra 500 million over the next two years to support the individual learning of children and the best teaching and learning for this century, because we want to give every pupilno matter what their prior attainment when they reach secondary schoolthe chance to catch up with their peers if they have fallen behind, with one-to-one tuition or small group support and, indeed, if they are gifted and talented, the chance to have their talents stretched and their potential reached. The personalisation of teaching and learningindividual supportwith the funding geared to those schools that need it most, is an incredibly important part of our package of reforms.

Ann Cryer: With regard to catching up, I am really concerned about one of the schools in my constituencyI have mentioned it to Ministers beforewhere only 11 per cent. of the students achieve five GCSEs. We do not have a top university in Keighley, so I wonder what will be the solutions for that school.

Ruth Kelly: My hon. Friend presents me with a challenge, but a welcome challenge. That is why the schools commissioner, based in my Department, will be asked first and foremost to identify those schools with the worst results in the most challenging areas, where children are not fulfilling their potential, to find out how we can put in place the support to help them to succeed. Quite frankly, if that means getting a top university or a business foundation into my hon. Friend's constituency, that is the challenge that I accept and that we have to match.

Simon Hughes: My local council and all the MPs for the area will work with any Government to improve standards, which are, indeed, improving in Southwark at the moment. However, can the Secretary of State promise that when the Bill is law, no one who contributes, say, 2 million out of a total cost of 20 million to a new school, as a partner, will be able as a result to buy a majority say on the board of the new school?

Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman has completely misunderstood the proposals before the House. There is no financial requirement for anyone to form a trust school. That will be done completely at the request of the governing body, and if the governing body does not want a trust to have majority representation, it need not have a majority at all. If it wants more elected parents, it can do so. Those are decisions for the governing body of the school, within a strong system of accountability.
	Unlike the Opposition parties, Labour Members are clear about what we stand for and what we need to do: provide more devolved power for schools, but greater strategic control for local government. That is why Labour local government supports the Bill. Sir Jeremy Beecham, leader of the Labour group of local authorities, said:
	We believe that these measures will be helpful to those councillors up and down the land trying to deliver better education on a daily basis.
	He urges all Labour MPs to support the Bill. Why? Because, as he sets out, the Bill will enact a new strategic role for local authorities, making the local authority the key decision maker on school organisation matters, andmost importantlywill give local authorities greater powers of intervention not just in failing schools, but in coasting schools as wella long-standing local government aspiration, now at long last, delivered by the Bill.
	My hon. Friends have been concerned that any new system should ensure fairness in school admissions. In that respect, I have listened carefully and I have responded to the concerns that I have heard. In the Bill, there is no new selection by academic ability and a ban on interviews. The Bill will force schools to act in accordance with a tough new admissions code and the system will be co-ordinated. Admissions forums will play a new role in ensuring that local schools deliver for every child. I stress that hon. Members on both sides of the House who back the Bill will be voting for less academic selection in our schools.

Alan Whitehead: We see in the Bill a requirement that local authorities must abide by the code of admission, but we do not have a code of admission because the previous one was withdrawn. Is it my right hon. Friend's intention that a new code will be published before the end of the debates in Committee, so that a code can be compared with what is in the Bill?

Ruth Kelly: My hon. Friend makes a very important point. It is right that hon. Members should have the opportunity to scrutinise the contents of a new code. In actual fact, there is a full consultation process that a new code has to go through before becoming legislation. Of course, that process will have to take place, but I can give him the guarantee that the main contents of the admissions code will be there to be scrutinised by hon. Members during the Committee stage.

Desmond Turner: I have a particularly serious allocation problem in my constituency. I am certainly given no confidence by the code that has just died, because that was in complete conformity to the allocation code and did not address the problems in any way whatever. Given that there will be different criteria in different schools as they so choose, does my right hon. Friend think that there is the potential for considerable chaos in allocations?

Ruth Kelly: No, I have to say that I completely disagree with my hon. Friend on this point. I think that the system will be more robust after the Bill than it was before it. There will be less academic selection in our schools and we will have a tougher code that will make existing practiceswhich he may or may not disagree withmore difficult after the Bill than before it. I can give the House that assurance.

Tony Baldry: The admissions policy for most of the secondary schools in my patch is based on catchment area followed by siblings. How is it going to differ in any way if they become trust schools? There is a particular problem in that very popular schools sometimes find it very difficult just fulfilling the demand from the catchment area. Many people in the catchment area want their children to go to those schools, so will they be able to expand? How will the admissions policy change after the Bill? Will popular schools be allowed to expand?

Ruth Kelly: On the first point, if the policy changes, it will be tougher rather than the status quo. Issues such as catchment areas and siblings will, of course, be the issues that schools take into account, but where a school is deliberately manipulating its catchment area to avoid taking certain challenging pupils into the school, that will not be tolerated in future. Admissions forums will scrutinise what is happening at a local level and will, on a yearly basis, produce a report examining what is happening and whether schools are, indeed, following the code of practice on admissions. The forums will examine how special needs children, children on free school meals and ethnic minority groups are faring. They will submit their report to the schools commissioner, who will review the impact on social segregation in a full report that will be available to Members of the House, so that we can show that we are reducing social segregation through the Bill and not increasing it.
	The hon. Gentleman also made a point about whether successful schools should be able to expand. I have to disappoint him because there is nothing in the Bill on school expansions. There already is a presumption in legislation to expand. However, the decision maker will change from being the school organisation committee to the local authoritysomething, again, that local authorities have been calling for for years. There will be a stronger, more robust framework for admissions under this Bill than before it.

Several hon. Members: rose

Ruth Kelly: I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) who, I know, has strong feelings on this point, before I come on to parents.

Clive Efford: Have I interpreted what my right hon. Friend has just said correctly? Does that mean that selective schools will not be able to expand?

Ruth Kelly: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I can tell him something else that he may not have noticed. Under the Bill and for the first time, partially selective schools will not be able to expand either.
	Children achieve more when their parents are engaged in their learning. This Bill will build on the excellent work of schools across the country by giving parents more information about how their child is doing at schooltermly reports and regular dialogue with teachers. There will be more information about choosing the right school for their child and we will introduce better, cheaper school transport.
	Parents are also concerned about behaviour at school. Most schools have good behaviour most of the time, but this Bill makes tackling bad behaviour a major priority. This Bill will create, for the first time, a clear statutory right for school staff to discipline pupils, putting an end to the You can't tell me what to do culture. This is exactly what teachers and teaching unions have asked for for yearsreforms first proposed by the Elton committee in 1988, but rejected by the Conservative party when it was in government.
	This Bill will transform the quality of the food that is served in our schools. Healthy food will not only help to halt the rise of child obesity, but many teachers believe that it will also improve pupil behaviour, motivation, readiness to learn and attainment.
	Lastly, I have always said that, as a country, we need to place the same emphasis on vocational education as we currently do on academic education. This Bill will ensure that every young person, wherever they live, can take any of the 14 lines of the specialised diploma that we are developing as part of our radical reforms of the 14 to19 curriculumfirst-class vocational education for the first time, as a right for every child.

Paul Farrelly: I am afraid that I am a little behind my right hon. Friend's words, because I am still trying to fathom out why she is insisting on retaining the veto against new community schools. If the veto is going to be at the discretion of the Secretary of State, what thought has she given to its possible use in the future by a Secretary of State not as reasonable as her?

Ruth Kelly: I have given commitments to Members that any local authority with a good track record that proposes a new community school should be able to have that proposal considered. I have also said that the criteria should be objective, to establish whether a local authority has a good track record. We will have a discussion in Committee about how we establish objective criteria and what those criteria will be, but that is the right place for that discussion. The issues involved are, indeed, technical and complex, and we have got to get them right.

Jon Trickett: On the very point about community schools and the Secretary of State's veto, is it not a fact that clause 2 builds in a presumption against community schools, because it clearly says that LEAs will be obliged to secure diversity of provision and
	increasing opportunities for parental choice?
	That being the case, is it not obvious that councils will be obliged to create non-community schools in order to provide the very diversity that will be a statutory duty if the Bill becomes an Act?

Ruth Kelly: I do not agree with my hon. Friend. The introduction of the duty on diversity was made to meet a very specific point. It has been introduced because local authorities need to be proactive in talking to parents, rather than reactive to poor education and poor education provision. Just as children's trusts in the area of children's services actively go out to map demand and talk to parents about what is required and provide a service that meets the needs of parents, so too should they do that for schools. That is the purpose of the duty; not the one that my hon. Friend infers.

Mary Creagh: I welcome what my right hon. Friend has said about the improvement to school meals, minimum nutritional standards and removing junk food from school vending machines. However, could she go further and perhaps consider introducing, at a later stage, a duty on schools to teach children about healthy eating, and also allow Ofsted to inspect school meals and report on the school food?

Ruth Kelly: My hon. Friend makes a very important point about school food. It is about time that we brought back tough new nutritional standards to our schools and improved the diet of our young people. It is right that they should learn about healthy eating and how to cook healthy food. In fact, the personal, social and health education part of the curriculum does that up to a point at the moment, but I also know that the new schools food trust sees this as an important part of its agenda going forward.

Gregory Barker: The Secretary of State said that there would be no selection for foundation schools, but can she confirm that they will be able to select pupils on their ability in foreign languages? Given that they can do that, how will that aptitude be assessed? Will it be by interview, examination or continuous assessment?

Ruth Kelly: No, that will not be the case. Only schools that are specialist schools in those subjects will be able to have an aptitude procedure. I am talking about the existing part of the specialist school system, which will work in the way that it does at the moment.
	The guarantee that I can give the House on trust schools, the delivery of vocational education, children's services, and the Every Child Matters agenda, is that, after the Bill, every school will have to collaborate to deliver the best for their pupils, but they will have the powers that they need to collaborate as they see fit and to work with other schools and external partners to drive up standards for their children within a strong local authority system.
	The Bill will help us to raise standards in our schools, especially the under-performing schools in our most challenging communities. It has been crafted on the basis of constructive discussion and dialogue. I am grateful to many colleagues in local government and schools and, of course, to my hon. Friends and colleagues here today who have contributed to the debate and helped to make this a better Bill. I look forward to an ongoing dialogue.
	It is because education is so important to us, on this side of the House, that we debate it so passionately. We always have and we always will. We are united in our aim of using education as an engine of social mobility and social justice. That is why we are taking forward our vision of a modern, outstanding education system. The Bill will ensure that young people have a right to high quality vocational education.

Joan Walley: On that point, will it be the case that parents who want to name a trust school for their statemented child will have the right to be able to force that trust school to accept them?

Ruth Kelly: Yes, and not only that. I can tell my hon. Friend that in future all looked-after children will also have priority in admissions to all schools, whether they are at the beginning of the admissions round or even later, when the school is full. I will make it a requirement that looked-after children are put top of the admissions list.

Henry Bellingham: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Ruth Kelly: No, I must make progress.
	The Bill will ensure that young people have a right to a high quality vocational education. It will introduce a tough new system to ensure high standards of discipline in the classroom. It will mean good quality school food for every child but, most importantly, it will ensure more good schools in our communities. This is a progressive Bill, a reforming Bill, a Labour Bill. I commend it to the House.

David Willetts: Raising standards in education is one of the most important tasks facing any Government, and any responsible person looking at the evidence of the state of our schools today would recognise that much more needs to be done: too many of our schools are simply not good enough.

Adrian Bailey: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Willetts: I will in a moment.
	Our weaker schools are concentrated, as I hope the hon. Gentleman would agree, in some of our poorest areas where children most need a hand up from a strong, rigorous and effective education.

Adrian Bailey: I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman's appreciation of the importance of education and good schools. Will he explain why the Tory Government consistently failed to provide adequate funds for schools and why he has consistently voted against the extra resources needed for them?

David Willetts: The hon. Gentleman should contemplate the important question of why, despite the large increases in funding since 1997, the improvement in school standards has been so modest. The answer is that there has not been serious educational reform alongside the increases in funding. That is what today's debate is all about. At last, belatedly, we are seeing some school reform to match the extra funding.

Michael Connarty: Is it not significant that the areas with the deepest pits of failure are the areas that the Tories control, where grammar schools are prevalent?

David Willetts: That is complete nonsense. We know, sadly, where the problems of failure are concentrated: in some of the poorest parts of our country. No one, on either side of the House, can take any pleasure from the statistics. Some 77 per cent. of children from a more prosperous household get five or more good GCSEs; 32 per cent. of children from a poor household get five or more GCSEs. That is the notorious 45 percentage point gap in pupil achievement. Sadly, that is virtually no better today that it was in 1997, when the Government took office. That is why Government Members should tell us why, after nine years in office, they have made such little progress.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Willetts: I will give way to the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan).

Sadiq Khan: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he unambiguously welcomes clause 40?

David Willetts: I had better just check. There are many clauses to which I am not able to give an unambiguous welcome. Our judgment on the Bill is based on its overall impact on schools. There are many features of the Bill, which I hope to come to in the course of my remarks, that I very much hope it will be possible for us to improve in Committee. That is why it is so important that, if at all possible, we have a long time to study the Bill carefully in Committee. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me about the importance of paying due attention to clause 40 and many other clauses that we may well wish to amend.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Willetts: I see a neighbour from Portsmouth.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Will the hon. Gentleman explain to the young people in my constituency who have seen a massive improvement in the percentage of people getting five GCSEs, from a very low 25 per cent. in 1997 up to 46 per cent., how he can interpret that as no improvement in education?

David Willetts: There has been some modest improvement. [Interruption.] Yes, I am not going to deny that. As I recall, the figures are that 37 per cent. of people were getting good GCSEs, and that is now up to 44 per cent. We recognise and welcome that, but the question for the hon. Lady is why, after nine years, when there have been 207 instructions to schools from the centre and funding has gone up, the achievement of improved standards is relatively modest. The answer is that, despite all the extra funding, schools have not been reformed as they should have been. That is the agenda behind the Bill, to which I now hope to turn.

Greg Clark: rose

David Willetts: I will do so after I have accepted an intervention from my hon. Friend.

Greg Clark: The number of people getting good GCSEs may have improved, but is my hon. Friend aware that the number of schools causing concern has increased in the past six months? The proportion has increased.

David Willetts: It is indeed one of the significant problems, to which my hon. Friend rightly draws attention, that there are too many schools in special measures, failing and giving cause for concern. They drift along in those circumstances for far too long. One of the measures that I welcome is the measure to try to speed up that process so that failing schools do not drift along in that limbo state as long as they do at the moment. I am grateful for the opportunity to endorse one of the Secretary of State's proposals.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Willetts: I will give way to the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) and then I will try to make some progress.

Nick Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman thinks about these subjects, so I would like him to answer the following question. Which does he believe is more likely to produce an improvement in standards in a school: changing the structure of the school or ensuring that there is the necessary quality of teaching and leadership from the staff, irrespective of the structure?

David Willetts: This is the sort of false distinction that we hear. If I remember rightly, what we used to hear in 1997 from the Prime Minister was Standards, not structures. The Bill reveals that he has come to recognise that one needs to change structures to help to get standards right. Of course, there are many other things that can be done to raise standards, including, as the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) rightly says, ensuring that there is good teaching.
	I was hoping to try to find some scope for agreement. I think that we agree on the need for reform to improve education standards further, and I suggest that we may even have some agreement on how to reform. Instead of the ideological debate that took place for so long about what form education reforms should take, we now have evidence coming in from other advanced western countries about how to deliver effective education reform to raise standards. The evidence from the school choice experiments in America and from Sweden clearly shows that one can raise standards by having more diversity of provision, more freedom for schools and more choice for parents. Those are the principles that we believe lie behind sensible education reform the world over that successfully raises standards.

Michael Clapham: On the point about evidence, has the hon. Gentleman looked at charter schools in America? Has he looked at schools in Minnesota and California? He made a point about Sweden, but if he looks at Europe he will see that the best results are in Finland, where there is a comprehensive system throughout the country.

David Willetts: I believe that phonics is an important part of the literacy teaching arrangements there.
	There is a lot of international evidence, and I have tried to address it, but I am happy to rest my case on an excellent lecture that I heard delivered at the London School of Economics only a few days ago by the Prime Minister's former adviser on public service reform, Julian Le Grand. His lecture was entitled Competition and Choice in Public Services and it set out excellently the thinking behind the Bill and reviewed the international evidence. It does not all point one way, but the vast majority of it points clearly towards what Professor Le Grand, a Labour supporter and former No. 10 adviser, summarises as the three key elements for public service reform: user choice, money following the choice and new forms of provider. That is a good summary of exactly what we need to do to raise standards. I am very happy to rest my case on the professor's lecture, and I rather suspect that the Secretary of State agrees with it, but perhaps at the moment she feels a little inhibited in saying so.

Angela Smith: I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman had to say about reform. Does he agree that one of those reforms should be that local authorities are able to require all types of school to set up special needs units to serve the needs of the most vulnerable children in our schools?

David Willetts: There is a serious problem with access to special needs. In Liverpool last week I spoke to parents of children with special needs. Their concern was that their children were going to mainstream schools and they were not confident that even the special units in those schools were the right environment for them. Many of them wanted their children to go to schools specialising in special educational needs, and they were suspicious that some of the units attached to mainstream schools would leave their children vulnerable to bullying. I do not believe that such units are the full solution.

Alan Simpson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Willetts: For some strange reason, the hon. Gentleman was unable to catch the Secretary of State's eye, so I am very happy to give him an opportunity to intervene. He might even want to make the point that he was going to make to the Secretary of State.

Alan Simpson: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I was beginning to get the feeling that had I been stark naked and the only person left in the Chamber I still would not have been able to intervene.
	The hon. Gentleman made a point about evidence forming his position in this debate. Rather than listen to the evidence of the Prime Minister's mates, will he look at the evidence presented by the OECD in its international comparisons, which shows that Finland, with its comprehensive system of education, driven through community schools, has the highest standards of attainment and achievement? The OECD also concluded that the fragmented systems around the world widen the gap between the achievers and the under-achievers. Why will not the hon. Gentleman base his position on that evidence, instead of on mates-based evidence?

David Willetts: I would like to turn to the question of fragmentation and diversity in a moment. I hear a lot about Finland. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman and I should go there on a fact-finding visit. I would be very interested to see what goes on in Finland because several people have put the hon. Gentleman's point to me. However, I would be interested to look not only at the structure of education in Finland but at what goes on in the classroomat what the teaching methods are. I would be interested to see how literacy is taught, whether synthetic phonics is used, how mathematics is taught and what kind of history lessons are taught. I rather suspect that Finland's standards are so high in the international league tables because of the pattern of education in the classroom which Conservative Members believe in and which has disappeared from far too many of our schools.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Willetts: I hope to make some progress, but I must of course give way to the Chairman of the Education and Skills Committee.

Barry Sheerman: As Chairman of the Select Committee, I took the Committee to Finland to look at certain aspects of education. We found that Finland is unique: it is small and it does not have the urban problems of most advanced societies with which we tend to compare ourselves. If we make a like-with-like comparison, we see that we are doing very well educationally, and I think that the hon. Gentleman would admit that.

David Willetts: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. This is in danger of becoming a seminar on Finnish education, and the time has come to move on.
	I would like to resume my speech by quoting an excellent remark of the Prime Minister's when he launched the proposals that we are debating. He said last October, and I thought that he put it very well:
	We want every school to be able quickly and easily to become a self governing independent state school.
	That was what he promised us last October. It was such a bold statement that it reminded me of another Prime Minister's view of education reform. Perhaps I can quote to Labour Members what she said:
	I want to see far more schools becoming independent state schools.
	That was our agenda for education reform when we were in government, so of course we were delighted when this Prime Minister finally repeated a commitment made by the former Conservative Prime Minister when she set out her views about how to reform education. If only Labour Members had listened to her 20 years ago, we would not have had so many years wasted in appalling attempts to get rid of initiatives such as grant-maintained schools, which we introduced as part of that policy.

Anne Snelgrove: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Willetts: In a moment.
	Socialism was once described as the longest route from capitalism to capitalism, and when I see this Government's approach to education reform I am very much reminded of that observation.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Willetts: I give way to the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones).

Helen Jones: The main difference between the hon. Gentleman's Government and this one is the investment that has been made in educationthat is why standards have risen. When I taught under the Conservative Government there were not enough textbooks to go around my classroom. Now there are new buildings, new computer suites and plenty of books for every child.

David Willetts: Of course the extra money has gone inI am not denying thatbut surely Labour Members must realise that the question on more and more people's lips is why, when so much money has gone in, the improvement in education has been so modest. Conservative Members know the answer: it is because the extra money was not accompanied by reform. If, when the Labour party first came into government, it had put some of the reforms in this Bill before the House, instead of abolishing grant-maintained schools, the hon. Lady might be able to enjoy a rather greater improvement in school standards as a result of the money that has been spent. That is the important point that I am trying to make.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Willetts: I give way to the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard), who has a long-standing interest in education.

Bob Blizzard: Before entering Parliament, I taught in one of the Conservative Government's independent state schools, otherwise known as grant-maintained schools. As I have said before, there is no doubt that the autonomy that we were given enabled us to achieve more, but grant-maintained schools operated within a system of inequitable admissions, which is ruled out by the Bill. Is the hon. Gentleman happy that that is ruled out, or does he want to go back to grant-maintained schools?

David Willetts: We have heard a great deal about grant-maintained schools, which have been caricatured. Two points have been made about grant-maintained schools. First, we have heard from several hon. Members that funding was unfair and that new trust and other schools will be funded differently. Let us be absolutely clear and set the record straight. Grant-maintained schools received the per capita funding of current expenditure along the lines inherited from their predecessors and there was no special arrangement whatsoever.

Ruth Kelly: What about capital?

David Willetts: It is true that they had access to capital on a different basis, because they did not have access to local education authority capital. If the Government think that grant-maintained schools having access to such money was wrong, why do schools receive access to 0.5 million if they decide to become specialist schools? Why do academy schools sometimes have access to more than 30 million of capital? If the arrangement was wrong for grant-maintained schools, why is it a feature of specialist schools and academies? If Government Members oppose that system, will they denounce those provisions as well? No more extra funding was provided to grant-maintained schools for capital than is provided to specialist schools or academies, so let us hear a bit less from them about that.

Peter Kilfoyle: Many Labour Members would object to any preferential funding for any school if we are to treat all children equally. The hon. Gentleman has made more than passing reference to his recent trip to Liverpool. Did he meet the Liverpool Association of Secondary Heads, which is another driving force behind improved standards? In a letter to the Secretary of State it said that the Government have missed a meaningful opportunity by emphasising structural change rather than the agreed drive for improved standards, which has already paid dividends, but with which we need to persist over a period of time.

David Willetts: I accept that structural changes are not the whole answer to the challenge of raising standards in schools, but we need such changes. Evidence from around the world clearly suggests what works. We need more diversity of school provision and school choice, and we need to be able to give schools more freedom. That is the model that is buried in the Bill.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Willetts: I should like to make some progress, and I hope that it will not be too uncomfortable for Government Members if I set out my reasons for backing the Bill.
	It is the Ides of March today, and the sound of daggers being sharpened around him may make the Prime Minister uncomfortable. The Opposition, however, are here to praise the Education and Inspections Bill, not to bury it, and I should like to take the opportunity to do so. The Prime Minister described the launch of his education proposals as
	a pivotal moment in the life of this Parliament and this Government.
	We all know that a pivot allows something to shift to a different position. It is a great relief that, even though he does not have a reverse gear, at least the Prime Minister has a pivot. On his pivot, the Bill turns.
	May I explain to Government Members which provisions we support? We support the fact that local education authorities are at last to be given a clear legal responsibility to pursue choice and diversity in the schools in their areathat is a good thing. We welcome the fact that local education authorities will now be obliged to conduct competitions for new schools, and perhaps more widely. Indeed, although the Secretary of State has not referred to it, buried in the Department's evaluation of the costs and the regulatory issues associated with the Bill is the assumption of 100 competitions a year between different providers to offer new schools. We think that such competitions to provide new schools are a very good idea. We look forward to 100 competitions a year, and welcome the fact that private providers, outside organisationsnot just charities but commercial organisationsand independent schools can take part in the competitions to offer to provide new schools. It is a good thing to open up British education to far more diversity than has been the case in the past.

Gordon Prentice: On the new duty to promote diversity, do we need many more single-sex Muslim schools?

David Willetts: If that is the community's position I would not oppose single-sex Muslim schools. If schools wish to offer single-sex education, they should be able to continue to do so, but there are threats to that in some parts of the country.

John Pugh: As 200 schools close every year because of falling rolls, roughly how many new schools and new providers will we need? Does the hon. Gentleman still support the Bill, given the Secretary of State has expressly made it clear that it will prevent the expansion of existing selective and grammar schools?

David Willetts: The Secretary of State has duplicated the provisions in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, because she was concerned that she was in danger of receiving our support. On balance, however, the Bill still increases schools' freedom.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Willetts: I shall try to make some progress, as hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to speak in the debate.
	I should like to talk about the provision in the Bill for trust schools. That is a strange policyit is a policy that dare not speak its name, as the expression trust school does not appear in the Bill. Such schools are known as foundation schools with a foundation. Trust schools are the successors of our grant-maintained schools. It is a pity, unlike our approach of proposing grant-maintained schools clearly, honestly and openly in a manifesto for an election fought on that proposal, trust schools do not appear in the Labour manifesto. We made it clear, however, in our 1987 manifesto[Hon. Members: 1987?] I have a copy with me. It makes clear what our grant-maintained schools could do. It is true that trust schools do not have quite as many freedoms as our grant-maintained schools, but they are a step in that direction. I would like to remind the Secretary of State of the commitment that we made on grant-maintained schools, and how we envisaged their operation. We said that they would become independent charitable trusts. That was the proposal that we made in 1987, and I believe that it is the origin of the trust concept.

Martin Salter: The hon. Gentleman, who leads for the Opposition on education, has indicated his support for the Bill, despite the fact that it now includes a mandatory code on admissions and the capacity for local authorities to open new community schools. Will he take the opportunity to distance himself from the lamentable minority report that was prepared by his Conservative colleagues for the Education and Skills Committee and fundamentally opposes both policies? He cannot have it both ways and retain any credibility.

David Willetts: There are excellent Conservative members of the Select Committee, and I thought that their minority report made important points about the provisions. I very much hope that we will have ample time to consider them, because they suggest ways in which the Bill could be improved. I am not claiming that the Bill is perfectit is a Bill that needs to be improved.

Gregory Barker: On my hon. Friend's point about clarity and honesty, is it not bizarre that in clause 40, on the prohibition of interviews, subsection (3) states that that
	does not prevent the arrangements from requiring or authorising any audition or other oral or practical test to be carried out in relation to an applicant solely for the purpose of ascertaining the applicant's aptitude?
	What is that, if not selection?

David Willetts: My hon. Friend is right. For specialist schools, there is selection by aptitude for 10 per cent. of pupils. It is extremely difficult for anyone to discern the difference between selection by aptitude and selection by ability. As the chief schools adjudicator put it so well,
	Finding a difference between the meaning of two such words is the sort of exercise lexicographers get up to when they haven't enough to do.
	The fact that the difference between aptitude and ability appears to be a fundamental distinction on which the Government's education policy rests reveals what a fragile structure it is.

Henry Bellingham: My hon. Friend is making a superb speech. Clause 40 states that schools may not interview potential pupils and their parents. What happens if parents go to the school and want to interview the head?

David Willetts: Indeed. The regulations are extraordinary. As I understand it, the purpose of such an interview is for the parents to learn about the school, but the school is not supposed to learn about the parents.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Willetts: I should like to make progress, as I want to consider two crucial concerns about the Bill. The first, which has been mentioned already, is what we might call the fragmentation concernthat the proposals in the Bill will lead to fragmentation and diversity, which will lead to inequity. That is a genuine concern, and I recognise that Labour Members express it with sincerity and conviction. If I honestly believed that the agenda of opening up more freedom for schools and giving them greater diversity would create even wider gaps in our society than exist at present, that would be a powerful objection to the proposals.
	However, I have to ask hon. Members who believe that argument, and who believe that we should return to the classic comprehensive model with every child going to their local secondary school, whether that model is as fair and equitable in practice as it is supposed to be in theory. In today's Britain, the main route for getting one's child to a good school is to get one's local priest to sign a chit or to be willing to pay the higher price to get a good house in a catchment area close to a good schoola higher price of 50,000 on average and in some cases possibly 200,000.
	I do not believe that a system of allocation of school places by the power of the local clergyman or the parents' ability to pay high house prices is any basis for a 21st century education system. In a modern, diverse, socially mobile country there is no way we can tie people down to their local catchment area and their local school. They are used to having a range of options and choosing between them. They will search the internet for information about how different schools are doing, and there is no basis on which any of us, on either side of the House, should try to pass laws and regulations to stop them exercising such choice.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Willetts: Let me make progress on this very important point, because it matters enormously to us on the Conservative Benches. We do not believe that that old model is any longer a way in which people can credibly claim to deliver social justice. That is why the system needs to be opened up, and why we need to consider a radically different alternative allowing greater diversity and choice.
	However, the alternative model has powerful critics, and none more powerful than the Deputy Prime Minister, who put it so well when he said:
	If you set up a school and it becomes a good school, the great danger is that everyone wants to go there.
	That is his objection to the model and his concern. I wish that that were only one of the absurdities that we are used to hearing from the mouth of the Deputy Prime Minister, but sadly, what he was describing is the thinking that lies behind far too much regulation of schools in our local areas.
	As an example of such thinking, I quote from the adjudicator's report on a request to open a new voluntary aided Montessori primary school. He wrote:
	With its new facilities, it
	that is, the new maintained school
	might prove attractive to more local families who might indeed find places to be available. If this were the case, then the anxieties expressed by the LEA, the schools local to the proposed site and other objectors would prove to be well founded.
	So the chief adjudicator did not allow the new Montessori school to go ahead. That is an outrage. That is not the way that education should be conducted in our country today. We want to see conditions made easier for new schools to be created and for successful schools to be expanded.
	Somewhere in No. 10, and perhaps at least with the Secretary of State and her adviser, Lord Adonis, there is a recognition that school adjudicators should no longer turn down bids to run a Montessori primary school. That is not a vision for education reform in the 21st century. The Prime Minister gets it. He is clear about that whenever he makes the case for education reform. It is a pity that, because of her fear of her own Back Benchers, the Secretary of State has been reluctant to make a case for education reform on those lines today. We know that the abolition of the school organisation committee and the new power of schools to compete to create new places are exactly what is necessary to move us in the direction that I have set out.

Tom Levitt: I owe it to the hon. Gentleman to give him a chance to take a breath. Is there not a world of difference between schools selecting parents and parents selecting schools? Does he agree that selection is the antithesis of choice?

David Willetts: Does the hon. Gentleman support specialist schools? Does he agree that they should have distinctive specialisms? Should they be able to select 10 per cent. of their pupils by aptitude in those specialisms? Can he explain to me the difference between the aptitude and the ability of pupils? That is a dangerous question to ask.

Tom Levitt: I am happy to respond. All the comprehensive schools in my constituency are specialist schools, and they may or may not take up to their 10 per cent. of additional pupils. What they do not and cannot do is select against children in their catchment area, who still expect and get comprehensive education from those schools.

David Willetts: The world is moving on.
	I have talked about the concern of Labour Members over the possible threat to equity. I understand the concern and appreciate their sincerity. I have explained why I do not believe that the old model of the local comprehensive school can work any longer. There is a second concernthat having laboured long and hard, the Secretary of State has produced a mouse. There is concern that despite the radical talk that we have heard from the Prime Minister and in the introduction to the White Paper, the Bill does not go far enough.
	We would like to see far more education reform than is in the Bill. There are too many examples in the Bill of measures that take a step towards more freedom and more choice, only to erect a Heath Robinson sort of contraption around them to stop freedom being enjoyed and choice being exercised. In Committee we will try to bring back the greatest possible freedom for schools.
	We have some concerns about restrictions in the Bill. I shall give two examplesfirst, the power of the schools adjudicator. The Bill increases enormously the adjudicator's power to interfere in the decisions that individual schools take, including about their admissions, but about many other matters as well. The powers of the adjudicator appointed by the Secretary of State are so enormous that it would be tempting to allow the powers to go into legislation, knowing that a future Conservative Secretary of State could use the powers of the adjudicator provided for in the Bill to change the education system in the way that we wish. If we simply wanted to come to power with maximum Executive freedom by fiat to change schools, we would use the powers of the adjudicator. I am sure that Labour Members will wish to consider that point.
	I do not believe in free-standing executive discretion on the scale that will now be enjoyed by the adjudicator. It is important for those of us on both sides of the House, who believe that ultimately these decisions should be taken by people who are democratically accountable, to consider whether we are content with the amount of discretion that the adjudicator will enjoy under the Bill and, in particular, whether we believe that it is right that there is no provision for any appeal by a school against a decision by the adjudicator. This is one way in which it may be possible for Members on both sides of the House to improve the Bill.
	Secondly, on the important issue of interviews for admission, the Bill goes even further by explicitly banning, in primary legislation, interviews for all purposes other than the allocation of children to a state boarding school. That ban is already in force through the admissions code, but it is tightened up in the Bill. I recognise that, and I regret it. It goes to the heart of an important confusion in the Bill. The Bill contains tough, indeed draconian, powers on discipline, and, in this day and age, we need to make it clear that teachers have disciplinary powers. But the Government are only thinking of how to improve order and discipline in a school by giving teachers almost unfettered power to discipline children. There is a better way of ensuring that schools are orderly and can maintain discipline, which is by encouraging schools to have a distinctive ethos and to have parents who are committed to the school and understand its ethos. Being able to invite parents to an interview to establish whether they and their children are committed to a home-school contract is a good way of establishing a commitment to discipline without having to fall back on the severe disciplinary powers proposed in the Bill. We know that a small number of Church schools have historically used interviews in order to establish the religious conviction of parents. I rather suspect that the Prime Minister is aware of such procedures used by schools. It is a great pity that he appears to be committed to a provision that would stop schools doing what the school to which he sends his children has been doing, which seems to us to be a reasonable way for Church schools to establish a denominational commitment.
	The Prime Minister said to a Labour party conference:
	I believe we're at our best when we're at our boldest.
	On another occasion, he said:
	Every time I've ever introduced a reform in government, I wish in retrospect I had gone further.
	When he contemplates the Bill, I am sure that he will wish that he had gone further. It will be our task in Committee to make sure that the Bill goes a lot further than it does now.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next Member, may I just remind the House that an eight-minute limit has been placed on all Back-Bench speeches? That applies from now on.

David Blunkett: I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will understand the nerves of a new Back Bencher. Even on the ides of March, I thought that the speech of the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), the shadow Secretary of State, did not add up to a Mark Anthony and it is unlikely that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would wish to play Cleopatra. His speech was, first, all about apologising for past Conservative education polices and, secondly, a feeble effort to try to divide this side of the House by pretending that the Conservative party is in favour of the Bill because it believes in the measures in it.
	The measures remove the kind of unfairness that the shadow Secretary of State has been talking about this afternoon when he was eulogising about grant-maintained status. Some Labour Members remember that very well: the unfair admissions, the unfair funding, the separation of one school from another and the inability to get people to realise that collaboration, not competition, helps schools to work with each other to provide a decent education. In the six and a half years during which I had the privilege of leading Labour's education policy, we undertook to overturn the unfairness we inherited in 1997.
	I commend my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister for listening and responding to the concerns that existed when the White Paper was published. It would be a great disservice to those who listened and responded if the message were to go out that Labour Members were churlish enough not to take that response and rejoice in it; in other words, if they were to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as we did so often in the 1980s. The message must go out that if the Government are prepared to listen and respond, then we, too, listen and respond and give our support to those measures.
	The strengthening of the admissions code, placing the changes in the Bill so that the wording will be in accordance with the code, not merely have regard to it, will be a major step forward, as will be the development of the forum not merely for admissions at local levelwhich some progressive local authorities, such as my own, already operatebut also to plan places for the future. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) mentioned in Prime Minister's questions, this also undertakes what is covered by the agenda in the White Paper, Every Child Matters.
	We believe in equality of opportunity in a way that the Conservative party demonstrated that it never did in the 18 years that it was in power. The Bill provides for a pupil-centred curriculum, an emphasis on vocational educationI hope that that will be a link between academic and non-academic pupils, not merely those who have been struggling with an academic agendaand an emphasis on discipline and on the ethos of the school, which often drives people, particularly in inner London, out of the state system.
	In Hackney, the most deprived borough in the country, 20 per cent. of parents send their children to private school at secondary level. Those parents are making a choice by opting out. We want people to make a choice by opting in to their local school where the standard of education is such, and where the culture and ethos have been so developed, that parents are proud to say that they are sending their chid to that school. The legacy we inherited was exactly the opposite. Special needs children were forgotten and under-investment and under-achievement were simply taken for granted. I remember what it was like in my constituency. People were not worrying about 25, 35 or 45 per cent. of pupils achieving A to C grades, but 6 and 8 per cent. In the school that is now known as Firvale community school, a specialist school, the figure was 6 per cent. The school had an 80 per cent. ethnic minority intake and the children and parents were told that no better could be achieved. The figure is now 36 per cent. and rising. That did not hurt neighbouring schools. They have transformed their achievements with the same intake they always had. Children will not be bussed from my constituency to the south-west of Sheffield, not just because it is a practical impossibility to get those in the south-west to bus back to my constituency, but because places are not available.
	The imperative is to transform education for those children by the sixfold increase in capital investment, the 30,000 extra teachers, the 110,000 teaching assistants and the emphasis that we place on intervening in the most disadvantaged areas. Trust status, collaborative as it must be in those areas that choose it, builds on the education action zones that we have created since 1997. Education action zones focus on disadvantage and they draw in resources from outside business and support from universities. I do not mind at all if HSBC wants to use some of its 11 billion to invest in an academy in my constituency. It will not have to because the seven schools that serve my constituency at secondary level have transformed themselves. They have also formed a new sixth form college in collaboration with the education authority in an entirely new governance model, reminiscent of the trust status that we are talking about. Each is sharing and contributinga part of the transformation in education that every one of us on the Labour Benches wants to see.
	While accepting that there will be differences between us, all of us accept that the real fervourthe passionfor education in the Labour party is because we know, as I certainly know, that it is the transforming element in people's lives. It takes people up the ladder, out of disadvantage. We want good education authorities, sharing and working through the forum, to be able to liberate people to enjoy the quality of education that so often they have been denied.
	Schools control schools, not education authorities. Today, we are building on the history of what we debated in 1995 and 1996 at conference and in the Education Act 1998. Because I benefited so much from education, I know that my constituency is an area that needs educational reform more than any other part of Britain. Building on what we have done, we shall achieve even greater strides in the future to transform our system.

Sarah Teather: The Bill is an eclectic mix of proposals, some of which we broadly welcome, such as the, albeit tentative, moves towards personalised learning, the streamlining of the inspectorate and the intentions behind the provisions on school nutrition. I suspect that those proposals will be largely uncontroversial.
	We also welcome the implementation of the Steer report on school discipline, especially the measure that finally clarifies the ambiguity in the law that left teachers without legal authority to impose discipline in the classroom and in other appropriate educational settings. We want to probe the proposals on pilots for school transport in more detail before offering support, but my main concerns about the Bill lie elsewhere.
	The problem with the Bill as a whole is that it is timid on reform[Interruption.] It is a timid Bill, with hidden dangers. Instead of building a radical, fresh agenda for reform for the 21st century, the Government's 11th Bill on education looks back 20 years for its ideas. Instead of addressing standards, which is the issue that most worries parents and future employers, the Bill focuses on structures. By failing to grasp real reform, it fails to tackle the most pressing problems in our education system and, worse, may actually entrench them.
	The Bill is a missed opportunity. At the heart of the problem with the Government's education reforms is a conflict at the heart of the Government, and the tension is played out in the Bill: whether to adopt a competitive or a collaborative model for education. The Government's failure to think clearly about that has paralysed their thinking. From the moment that the White Paper was published, No. 10 has spun in one direction and the Secretary of State has been forced to row back the rhetoric in another. We shall end up with a Bill that is a mish-mash of both approaches, with no clear vision for the future.

Several hon. Members: rose

Sarah Teather: I shall give way when I have finished this section of my speech. Be patient, please.
	The opportunity for radical reform lies not in trying to combine the oil of competition with the water of collaboration, but in marrying a different set of opposites: autonomy and collaboration. Autonomous schools should decide which teachers they employ and how they spend their budgets, and should have the one freedom that the Government have constantly failed to give themmatching the curriculum they can offer to the needs of the pupils they serve. Collaboration means local schools and colleges working together to share good practice to develop the expertise of staff and share facilities, delivering with other agencies, including the local authority, the five outcomes that we want for children.

Stephen McCabe: According to a Liberal Democrat press release, schools would be required to take a certain number of children who are eligible for free school meals, otherwise they would lose out financially. Is not that a focus on social engineering and structures rather than on standards?

Sarah Teather: We would like admissions to be controlled by the local authority; we do not think it appropriate for schools to control their own admissions, as that is much more likely to entrench social segregation. One of the things that we have been looking into is giving schools an incentive to take children from disadvantaged backgrounds or who are underachieving and, under the proposals that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, giving them extra money to take those children so that they can do well[Interruption.] That is one of the proposals that we are looking at and I shall come back to that point later in my speech.

Mark Hendrick: Given that the Bill does so much to improve discipline in classrooms, why do the hon. Lady and her party intend to vote against it?

Sarah Teather: As I explained, although we welcome those proposals, there are so many other aspects of the Bill that are timid on reform that as a whole it is not good enough to accept. The Conservatives have made a similar decision; there are things that they do not agree with, but they have decided on the whole to support the Bill. Each party must consider the Bill as a whole. We have done so and we do not feel that it is good enough.

Sadiq Khan: The hon. Lady has just explained why she is not in favour of giving schools autonomy on discipline. Can she explain why she is not in favour of giving children aged between 14 and 19 the skills they need to do well in society?

Sarah Teather: The hon. Gentleman has not listened to what I said. That is not what I said. I said that we were opposed to giving schools autonomy on admissions, not on discipline. Particularly lacking in the Bill are proposals to implement the reforms recommended by Tomlinson. There are proposals on personalised learning, but they are timid reforms that go no way towards meeting the needs of young people.
	We object to the Bill because we believe that the Government have missed the point about freedom and they have missed the point about choice. The proposed new trust schools will lack the one freedom that schools really want and that pupils really needthe freedom to teach what young people want to learn. But they will gain the one freedom that is likely to make inequality and discrimination worsethe freedom to pick their pupils.
	The most important predictor of educational achievement for young people growing up in Britain today is their parents' income, and the gap between the attainment of rich and poor is getting worse, not better. For many young peoplemore than 16,000 last yearthat means they will leave school with no qualifications at all. About half of 16-year-olds leave school with fewer than five good GCSEs. Britain has one of the worst records in the developed world on 16-year-olds leaving education, yet post-16 education has a huge impact on a young person's future earnings. Almost 80 per cent. of young people who leave school at 16 go on to earn less than half the average wage, so our education system is fostering inequality rather than aspiration.
	If we are serious about tackling poverty and social justice and about giving all our young people the opportunity to fulfil their potential, we must address the reason why so many are failed by the current system. Reform of our education system must begin with freedom for schools from the over-regulatory centralised curriculum, with real reform of education to give young people choice and opportunity over what they learn.

Tom Levitt: The hon. Lady is making points rather than arguments. The thrust of what she seems to be saying is that the Bill does not go far enough, but given that it is the only Bill on offer and that it takes us a long way along many of the lines that she has set out, why does not she accept half a loaf and then go further?

Sarah Teather: Because, as I was about to point out, some of the problems with the Bill will make it difficult to implement the reforms that we want.

Andrew Turner: The hon. Lady knows that the Conservatives who now run the Isle of Wight council were bequeathed a failing education system by the Liberal Democrats, who admitted as much when they left office. Can she tell me on how many occasions they asked the Secretary of State for derogations from the national curriculum such as she has described?

Sarah Teather: The hon. Gentleman cannot expect me to know the detail of what has happened in his local area, but if he writes to me, I shall write back.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Due to the hon. Lady's rationing policy on interventions, I must refer back to her remarks on admissions. The Bill states that looked-after children will have priority on admissions, which already happens in my constituency. By voting against the Bill, the hon. Lady will deny that right to all the other looked-after children in the country. How will that help disadvantaged children?

Sarah Teather: The provision that the hon. Lady has mentioned will be introduced by regulation and is not part of the Bill.
	If we are serious about reforming education, we must, as I have said, implement the reforms in the Tomlinson report. The entitlements to diplomas laid out in the Bill are all very well, but they will do nothing to shift the two-tier system in education. The two-tier system fails children at both ends of the academic spectrum, because the brightest children are not stretched and many others are completely disaffected. Both groups of children need the option of combining skills and study to allow them to enter the work force with knowledge and know-how.
	The Labour Government claim to advocate the politics of transformation, yet they have bottled this chance to transform 14-to-19 education, leaving untouched one of the most potent sources of Britain's class divide. Why will they not implement the root and branch reforms recommended by all since the late John Smith's commission on social justice more than a decade ago.

Andrew Dismore: Is it Liberal Democrat policy to abolish A-levels?

Sarah Teather: As we have said, we want to implement the Tomlinson report, which means using building blocks in a modular form to build towards a diploma.
	To implement the Tomlinson report properly and provide real pupil choice, one needs a model by which schools and colleges work together. Clause 149 includes enabling powers to support schools and colleges in working together, but there is no incentive and no requirement to adopt that approach. No school is likely to be able to offer a full range of courses for students across the whole range of vocational and academic study, let alone arrange for work-based learning, if it is appropriate.

Dari Taylor: Will the hon. Lady acknowledge that she has only read the Bill in part? I chair the all-party group on adoption and fostering, and it states on the face of the Bill that top priority will be given to admissions for looked-after children, which is crucial. I hope that she has the decency to acknowledge that she has read the Bill only in part.

Sarah Teather: I shall certainly look at that point. [Interruption.] I have been in this job for one week, and if I am wrong, I am happy to be corrected.

Meg Hillier: The hon. Lady is confusing me, because one moment she talks about devolving power locally, while the next she talks about making changes at a higher level. The Bill gives schools choice, and I point her to the example of Hackney, where strong political leadership has resulted in freedom for local schools along with a requirement to collaborate. If she believes in decentralisation, she should believe in the power of local government to get schools to work together.

Sarah Teather: I believe in decentralisation, but I do not believe in devolving power on admissions.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: Will the hon. Lady explain how it squares with Liberal philosophy to oppose giving more freedom to schools, parents and governors to form partnerships or federations of their choosing in order to raise standards in their school?

Sarah Teather: I shall come to that point later in my speech. We do not oppose that approachin fact, we welcome it. It would be better if groups of schools and colleges in an area came together to collaborate and co-operate on timetables and teaching and were judged by their collective efforts and not by the individual exam results of each institution. I welcome the Secretary of State's support for federations, which already exist in many areas, and I also welcome the change in language on supporting collaboration, but the problem is that the Bill does not include a lot of those proposals.
	As has been said, schools could collaborate through loose federations and more formal learning networks, or we could require schools and colleges to work together in a community learning trust, which would still allow external partners to participate. [Interruption.] I have no problem with the concept of a trust; my problem concerns particular details. [Interruption.] I also have a problem with giving freedom on admissions. Reducing the number of parent governors on a trust rules out community governance.
	We need to reform education and focus more on students' needs. When one examines the most poorly performing secondary schools in England, one finds that they are plagued by three interrelated problemspoor discipline, truancy and young people opting out of post-16 education altogether. Pupils are currently voting with their feet. In the months of posturing leading up to today's debate, the word choice has been oft used and much abused, although it actually appears only three times in the Bill. The Government have not used the word choice in respect of young people, and we need an education system that gives young people choice and encourages them to take responsibility in their lives.

Bob Spink: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving wayshe is being quite generous. Will she take this opportunity to clear up the Liberal Democrat policy on discipline, because I have been confused by her remarks so far? Does she agree that bad behaviour is a key ingredient in poor performance in schools and that we need more discipline? Does she support clauses 84 to 86, which extend parenting orders and all of that?

Sarah Teather: We all agree that the Bill is complicated, and one needs copies of about four Acts and five statutory instruments to understand it. However, I cannot answer on all of that.
	We support all the recommendations in the Steer report, although we are concerned whether the proposal to take the parents of excluded children to court if their children are found in a public space in the first five days of an exclusion is practical, so we want to probe that issue further.

Mary Creagh: Before the hon. Lady entered this House, she was briefly a councillor in a north London authoritylater, she became the local candidate in another part of the London. She has discussed timidity in the Bill, but she was on the committee that scrutinised the outsourcing of the Liberal Democrat council's school meal service, which resulted in the outsourcing to Scolarest of school meals, the closing and selling off of school kitchens and children being fed a different type of mechanically separated turkey every day. Does she regret her timidity when she sat on the committee that failed to provide decent school meals for children in that area?

Sarah Teather: Perhaps we should get back to dealing with the detail of the Bill.

Adrian Bailey: The hon. Lady has rightly identified bad discipline as a reason why some schools perform badly, and she has advocated radical changes. Why does she not support the radical change of giving teachers the right to discipline in school?

Sarah Teather: indicated assent.

Adrian Bailey: In that case, why does the hon. Lady not vote for the Bill on Second Reading and table amendments in Committee on the items with which she does not agree?

Sarah Teather: I see that I am going to have to repeat myself several times. That was pretty much the first thing that I said, when I explained that we all have to make a choice based on the whole Bill, just as the Conservatives have. They have made a choice on the whole Bill and said that although there are things that they disagree with they feel that it is worth giving it a Second Reading. We have looked at the whole Bill, and I am afraid that we feel that there are too many problems for us to be willing to give it a Second Reading.
	Let me return to the word choice, which has come up rather a lot. The choice in the Bill, if there is any, is all about decisions at 11. I believe that choice should be a theme that should run throughout the education system. Even when choice is mentioned, I cannot help wondering whose choice it really is. If one lives in a rural area, much of the hubbub about choice in schools is irrelevant because there are not that many to choose from. For parents in urban or semi-urban areas, whether or not free transport is offered, the crisis at 11 is about surviving the stampede to get into one popular school and hoping that one's child does not end up lumbered with any of the unpopular ones.
	That is not meaningful choice. The problem is that if we give schools the freedom to control their own admissions, we will take away what little choice parents have and hand it to schools that will have the power to choose their pupils. All the evidence suggests that when schools do that, they choose the well-off and bright children, leaving the others to go to other schools. That is hardly surprising given the incentive to do so because of nationally publicised league tables. If we move further down this route we could completely undermine the comprehensive system.

Several hon. Members: rose

Sarah Teather: I am not going to give way now as I want to make some progress.
	Let us look at the evidence on admissions and social segregation. From the Sutton Trust, to Simon Burgess's work at the University of Bristol, to Rebecca Allen from the Institute of Education, the findings are similar. Schools that control their own admissions and perform highly are less likely to take poorer students than the catchment area would predict. The Government will say that they have outlawed more schools being able to select by ability, that they have forced schools to operate in accordance with the new code, and that they have legislated to prevent schools from interviewing in order to choose pupils. That is welcome, but it is not enough. Very few schools use interviews to select pupils anyway. Much more serious are the covert measures such as gerrymandering of catchment areas, name recognition and selection by aptitude, which is really just a semantic sleight of hand for selection by ability.
	Is anybody really convinced that a code to be published after the Bill will be tough enough anyway? Will it be sufficiently tight? Can a beefed-up admissions forum police it adequately? Will it have the data? Will it be prepared to challenge the data provided? Will it really be prepared to grass on its high-performing local schools to the schools adjudicator? Frankly, a system that needs so many safeguards probably is not safe in the first place.
	One wonders how on earth parents are supposed to navigate their way around a system with so many more schools operating their own criteria. One choice adviser per local authority is about as far as the proposed 12 million is going to go.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Lady has indicated that she is not going to give way at the moment.

Sarah Teather: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I will give way in a moment, but I said that I wanted to make some progress.
	Every MP and councillor will know that schools admissions are one of the most controversial aspects of education. Surely that is therefore the one issue that should have some accountability. The local authority is the right place to decide an area's admissions policies for community schools, foundation schools and city academies. Whatever other freedoms they may have, this one needs a strategic overview.
	What about parent representation on the governing body of these trust schools? We know the direction of travel that the Government take on this. Look at academies, which need only one elected parent governor, with all the others appointed. That is no way in which to increase parents' influence on schools.

Andrew Turner: If 100 pupils are admitted to a school and 365 are turned down under one admissions policy, and the admissions policy is changed, will not that still lead to 100 pupils being admitted and 365, perhaps different, pupils being turned down?

Sarah Teather: It will not change how many are turned down. The key problem is the criteria that are used for turning them down and whether those criteria are accountable. Will the brightest children or those with the most well-off and articulate parents be taken? If so, we will have two-tier schooling.

Angela Smith: The hon. Lady's comments about city academies are surprising given that when the Liberal Democrats were in charge of Sheffield city council they opened up negotiations with the Vardy Foundation for a city academy. I would appreciate her comments on that.

Sarah Teather: One of the problems with the way in which the Government run education is that they do not give councils an awful lot of freedom about the kinds of schools that they want to offer in a particular area, so that they are forced down a route, either through bribery or financial incentive, and often through the building schools for the future programme.
	If the Government really want to turn round underachievement and social segregation in schools, they need to look again at the way in which schools are funded. If a means could be devised to target specific funding at young people who are underachieving or disadvantaged, schools would have an incentive to take those young people and they would get the extra resources that they need to thrive. By that I mean not just targeting a local authority or a school but following the pupil. We are looking at how such a system could be implemented in practice. A similar model has been used in the Netherlands and in Finland with considerable success, and I hope that the Government will look in more detail at such methods.

Andrew Gwynne: Is the hon. Lady aware that Stockport council, which is Liberal-controlled, constantly argues that more money should go to the wealthy areas of the borough such as Cheadle and Bramhall rather than to the poorer parts of the borough such as Reddish?

Sarah Teather: The hon. Gentleman underlines the point that I am trying to make. Wealthy areas often have young people, children and families who are very deprived. That is part of the problem of targeting money at a particular area instead of at particular deprived families. The index of deprivation is very wide, particularly in Stockport.

Sadiq Khan: The hon. Lady expressed concern about poorly performing schools and said that local authorities should be given a greater role. The National Audit Office report on improving poorly performing schools in England recommended that local authorities should intervene in them earlier. Why is she not supporting that provision in the Bill?

Sarah Teather: I will come to that later.
	I want to move on to the roles of central and local government. For all the spin on freeing up schools, it is notable that in the first 70 pages of the Bill the Secretary of State is mentioned in action or possible action more than 60 times, regulations prescribing this and that are mentioned more than 50 times, and the guidance of the Secretary of State is made available 20 times. She is going to be an extremely busy girl. It is hardly localist. We broadly support the idea of local authorities moving to a more commissioner-based role to support increased diversity in the system, but we do not see why they should not also compete to run community schools. That is a local decision that should not be subject to the Secretary of State's veto or interference.
	If we want local authorities to commission, we need to decide exactly what we mean by that. First, we need to give them the power to decide how much money to put into education, and where to target it. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Private conversations are breaking out. The House must listen to the hon. Lady who is addressing us.

Sarah Teather: Hon. Members are still trying to decide how to vote.
	How can anyone believe that the Government are serious about any real substance to this commissioning role when at the same time as they announced it, they also announced the first dedicated schools grants, which bypass local authorities and for the first time ever take education funding decisions out of their hands?
	Secondly, when local authorities commission other services they follow a standard model of good practice whereby they carry out a needs assessment, then commission services to meet those needs and hold service providers to account. The model in the Bill has been spun as little more than giving local authorities the power to book the newspaper space to advertise the competition. There is a key strategic role for local government here, which has not been adequately acknowledged. This Bill, like the Conservative legislation in the late 1980s, has been driven by 10 years of rising school rolls and increasing levels of distress and anxiety on the part of parents, particularly in the capital, who have found they cannot get their children into a school they that they are happy with. However, we are about to face 10 years of falling school rolls, and we will lose an estimated 500,000 teenagers from our schools in the next 10 years.
	Do the Government expect the market to manage school allocation and resources efficiently? What will happen when a school faces closure and opts out to become a trust school? Unless councils are given a more explicit role in managing resources, they will find that they have two conflicting duties: efficiency and good management of public finances, and providing choice in the system. The Government have simply not tackled that.
	The improved role of local authorities to step in when schools are coasting or failing academically is to be welcomed greatly. However, local authorities also have other duties, including fulfilling the requirements of Every Child Matters. They have no powers to step in when trust schools fail to achieve those criteria. Indeed, the spin on the model is unlikely to encourage the cross-departmental approach to children and young people's services that is required. We are therefore back where we started.
	Do we need a model for education that encourages competition and places choices in the hands of schools and their trustees, or do we want one that champions choice for pupils and parents, and promotes autonomy and collaboration? I know which model I believe will deliver for children, especially the most disadvantaged, who already miss out so much under the current system. The Bill fails to do that. The Government should go away and think again.

Barry Sheerman: I congratulate the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather). It is her first time on the Front Bench. [Interruption.] Let us be generousit is a stressful occasion. We hoped that she would be briefer than her predecessor, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), but we were disappointed.
	In the short time that Back Benchers get, I should like to concentrate on two matters, the first of which is the background to the Bill. Many words are bandied around about different parties' achievements in comprehensive education. We should all remember with some humility that comprehensive education was a grass-roots movement. It was a passion of people from many parts of our country who hated the 11-plus, and the social division on which it was based, so much that they and local authorities throughout the countrysome of them not Labourchanged the situation. National politicians joined in a bit later. Let us be honest about that.
	However, once we had got rid of the inequity of the 11-plus in much of our country, we did not think hard enough about its replacement. Too much of the debate for the past 50 years has been superficial. Let us consider the history of comprehensive education. Last year, I went to Kidbrooke school for its 50th anniversary. It was the first purpose-builtin 1955comprehensive school in the country. In 1964, Harold Wilson said that now we had comprehensive education, we would all have a grammar school education. That was wrong. We wanted comprehensive education to mean the right education for all the talentspractical, vocational, academic or a combination of all three. Some of us have been slow to tackle that.
	What goes on under a school roof? In the time that I have had the privilege of chairing the Select Committee on Education and Skills, I have learned that one picks up, usually through school visits, what is happening on the ground and one can compare it with some of the great speeches that are made in this place. I believe that, until 1997, we did not get far.
	In the run-up to the 1997 election, Labour Members started to think about what genuine comprehensive education should mean. We started discussing diversity and choice well before 1997 because we did not want comprehensive education to meanwe are not supposed to mention bog standard any morethe same sort of school in every part of the country. We wanted schools that were of their community and responded to skills needs, parents' aspirations and so on, and a fantastic change has occurred since 1997.
	We have not achieved everything we wanted but we have got away from some of the isms. I went to the London School of Economics, where I was taught by Michael Oakeshott, the famous Conservative philosopher. He said that one should put more faith in the pursuit of intimationssteady progress based on evidencethan in any ism, be it socialism, fascism, communism, nationalism or Conservatism.
	Let us be honest with each other. In the past 10 years, Labour Members have seriously considered the sort of comprehensive model that we want. We have set a course. Of course, we have not arrivededucation is not like that. The shadow Secretary of State was a little pompous in some of his comments about that. [Interruption.] He is not always pompous. Sometimes he makes not superb, but pretty good speeches.
	We have not only had 10 years of newly defined commitment to comprehensive education in the communities that they serve, but we have moved to a new position whereby we put resources behind our aspirations. No one, not even Conservative Members, can deny the money that has gone into education at every levelpre-school, throughout mainstream school, to higher educationabout which I often ask for more assurances. We have genuinely changed the commitment. I shall make one party political comment. I sat in the House for 18 years listening to Secretaries of State who would never send their child to a state school tell me, who sent all my children to state school, how well they had done for the state sector. The Government have therefore made a great change.
	My second point is about the progress of the Bill. It was initially published as a White Paper, which the Select Committee had the privilege of considering. It was not perfect. No measure has ever been perfect. However, we should be proud as parliamentarians that we turned the measure into a good Bill. We made it a rigorous, better and radical measure. I believe in its principles: fair admissions and diversity and choice. What is wrong with that for the communities that we represent? Nothing. However, we must support it with resources and leadership.
	The measure is diverse. Fair admissions must be at its heart. The Secretary of State asked us to judge her and the Bill on whether it delivered for the underprivileged child who does not get the sort of education that we would like for our children and those of every constituent whom we represent.

Lynne Jones: Is not the problem that we have to judge the Bill without knowing what the code of practice will contain?

Barry Sheerman: When we took evidence on that, we were happy that the code of admissions would be tougher. It had already been accepted that there would be no interviews. The Secretary of State assured us that the admissions code would be stronger, more robust and fit for purpose. Our suggestion that the admissions forum, local authorities and schools could call in the schools adjudicator toughens up the number of times that the adjudicator can be brought in if something that should not go on is happening.
	The Select Committee also made a genuine breakthrough in getting the concession on what the school commissioner could do to assess the intake of schools throughout the country. Although I would prefer an annual assessment of schools' social mix, I am most proud of the biennial assessment, which the Select Committee's report recommended.
	The White Paper and the Bill received more consultation than any other measure that I can remember in my 26 years in the House, and not only in the Select Committee, although I think that we did a darned good job. Okay, we did not get unanimity, but we produced a very good report. However, we also saw Labour Back Benchers and people from other parties making positive suggestions that were listened to by the Secretary of State and the Government, and we got change. Not only that, we got change in the School Transport Bill that came in last year. The Transport Committee looked at it, and it was obvious that it needed changing and improving. Why cannot we be proud of ourselves sometimes, not just because of our parliamentary responsibilities but because we have changed a Bill and improved it, and because we are now on course to make our country's education better than it was before?

Kenneth Clarke: I am confidently expecting, at the end of this debate, to take part in Divisions that will give the Bill a bigger majority on its Second Reading than almost any Government Bill of recent times. That would give me particular pleasure because it is on the subject of education.
	This also marks a considerable shift in the agenda of political debate. A large bloc of the Labour party is moving towards consensus with members of my own Conservative party, at least on the agenda of political reform, and it is important that we should do that. The poor performance of the British state education system, compared with that of most major industrialised countries, is one of the weakest features of British society. I rejoice that we are moving so close to a consensus; I only regret that it has taken us almost 20 years to get there, during which key figures who are now advocating the reforms from the Labour Benches have spent some of their time bitterly opposing the very principles on which they now base their legislation. However, that is behind us now, and I understand their difficulty. The Secretary of State made a speech in favour of a Bill of which I am broadly in favour, during which I had to listen to her stressingfor reasons I entirely understandall the parts of the Bill that she never wanted to put in, and with which she hopes I disagree. I do disagree with some of them and I hope that we can amend them in Committee. However, we all know the direction in which we are going.
	Some peculiar versions of the history of education reform have been given recently, but they have glossed over Kenneth Baker's reforms of the mid-1980s. The parenthood of the Bill is only too plain to see. I shall not labour that point because we are looking forward to what needs to be tackled and how we can make the best of what we are now doing. However, I shall just remind the House of the old adage: if it looks like a dog and barks like a dog, it probably is a dog. Labour Members are never more ridiculous than when they go blue in the face trying to convince us that the supposed trust schools are not grant-maintained schools, or that the city academies are not city technology colleges, renamed. Indeed, the same legislation was used to introduce the academies that we used to introduce the city technology colleges. Labour Members also talk about diversity of supply, parental choice and the opportunity to compete in terms that would have resonated with everyone who was Secretary of State during the third term of Mrs. Thatcher's Government.
	I get worried when the Secretary of State tries to tell the likes of me that I am about to vote against principles that I hold dear. She plucked out as an example some feature of the Bill that she had thrown to old Labour. However, I am reassured when I go back to the White Paper, because there is absolutely no doubt about the direction the Government were setting out when they produced these measures. The Prime Minister's foreword states that
	the local authority must move from being a provider of education to being its local commissioner and the champion of parent choice.
	[Hon. Members: Hear, hear!] So say all my right hon. and hon. Friends. The Prime Minister's foreword continues:
	Our aim is the creation of a system of independent non-fee paying state schools.
	That is perfectly clear, and it explains why the Secretary of State's veto over local authority proposals to carry on opening new community schools has been insisted on by the Government and remains part of the Bill. I am warmed by the fact that they have stuck to their guns on that, at least. I hope that any future Secretary of State in a Conservative Government will make ample use of that veto when local authorities try to challenge the structure for which this Secretary of State is paving the way.
	If I may, I shall embarrass the right hon. Lady further by quoting her own White Paper. Paragraph 1.30 on page 20, describing the new system, states:
	This can only be achieved in a system that is dynamic, with weak schools replaced quickly by new ones, coasting schools pushed to improve and opportunities for the best schools to expand and spread their ethos and success.
	That involves competition. It also involves enabling the best schools to expand and moving quickly to close irredeemably failing schools. That has been slightly obscured in the wording of the Bill, but let there be no mistake among Members below the Gangway on the Labour Benches: I know how a Conservative Secretary of Stateand new Labour Secretaries of State over the next year or two, if they can get away with itwill implement that policy and use those powers.
	Paragraph 1.35 on page 21 of the White Paper states:
	And if parents want to open a school, then it should be the job of the local authority to help them make this happen.
	That follows a long, clear description of how parents should be in the driving seat when deciding what kind of school provision they want. They should be the best arbiters of the arguments about unsuitable people coming in and trying to run trusts or unscrupulous people misusing their powers. We must trust parents more; they want the best for their children. I agree with the Government that creating more parent power in this way within this kind of structure will finally move our education system further forward at a much more satisfactory speed.

Lynne Jones: rose

Phil Willis: rose

Kenneth Clarke: I shall give way in a moment.
	The problem is obvious. Before we get to our resounding majority in this debate, the main problem is that the Labour Government are not being allowed openly to express the courage of their new convictions by their own Back Benchers. We are engaged in a curious political exercise this afternoon, but I hope that it will lead the way not to total agreementthere are plenty of details still to argue aboutbut to a new agenda, a new footing for the education debate. That is certainly what Margaret Thatcher, Kenneth Baker and I, when I was Secretary of State, would have wanted to see 15 or 20 years ago.

Phil Willis: I was a head teacher when the right hon. and learned Gentleman was Secretary of State, and I know just how effective those Conservative policies were at dumbing down standards[Interruption.] I had to get out. He has made some serious points in trying to drive more Labour rebels into the Opposition Lobby, but will he tell me where the evidence comes from that more parents want the powers that are now outlined in the Bill and which Baroness Thatcher and others wanted from 1983 to 1987?

Kenneth Clarke: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I am conscious of the fact that the Labour Front Bench, my Front Bench and Members like myself have not yet managed to get the public to catch up with us. It is only too easy for the Liberal Democrats, every time reform is proposed, to get on a platform and oppose all reform and structural change. The easiest way to get a cheap round of applause is to say, We don't need to change anything. All we need to do is make our own local school better. We have spent years doing that, and the present Secretary of State and every Conservative Secretary of State have been driven to the conclusion that that will not just spontaneously happen. We need resources and reform, and we need the system to be shaken out of its complacency about its performance. People do not realise, if they live in a decent area and their school is doing rather better than those in the run-down downtown areas, that this is not good enough. As the Government rightly say, too many schools are coasting along. Some are doing quite well, but they are not doing as well as they should. Diversity, choice and competition will enable us to challenge that complacency, bring a new dynamic to the system, and introduce some new providers who will do better.
	I want to make one more point, very briefly.

Lynne Jones: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Kenneth Clarke: I literally have no time.
	We must tackle the question of selection. It is bizarre that, in order to secure as many supporters as possible, the Secretary of State should pretend today that we are arguing about the 11-plus, and about selection. She needs to address a key question: if education is to be personalised and tailored to each pupil, what is to be done about the gifted children in poorer areas? The old shibboleths do not answer that question, but it is a question that the Government must answer and we must answer

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. and learned Gentleman's time is up.

Nick Raynsford: It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), although on this occasion he confined his remarks to generality and rhetoric. We heard very little about the outcomes of his own tenures as Secretary of State for Education and as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Those of us who have followed developments in education over many years know that those were years in which teachers and others involved in education, including parents, were desperate because of the underfunding of education and this country's relatively poor attainment levels in comparison with those elsewhere in Europe, to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred. Those levels are improving significantly, and I would have expected him to acknowledge that the Government's increase in resources for education has been a major factor in that improvement.
	I am one of the Members who criticised the White Paper when it was published. I considered it a poor piece of work. It was incoherent in many respects, it lacked an evidence base, and it contained claims and statements that were difficult to credit. It was difficult to understand how local authorities could act as strategic champions for their areas, working to raise standards and to ensure an adequate supply of places to meet parental aspirations, if they were the subject of vilification in some of the background briefing and if their role was being written off as though they were being sidelined. I do not think that that was at all helpful.
	I pay tribute to the Secretary of State and her team for the way in which they have worked with Back Benchers like me over the past few months, and to the Select Committee and others who have voiced significant criticisms of the original White Paper and have worked to improve it. We now have a Bill that I shall be happy to support tonight, although I still feel that changes are needed.
	My main reason for supporting the Bill is that it continues the good work already done by the Government to raise educational attainment levels. It recognises the importance of a coherent approach that links what is being done for teaching with the wider Every Child Matters agendasomething that appears to be entirely unfamiliar to Conservative Members, whose approach seems to involve ignoring the importance of coherence and interdependence. I think that in future years they will rue their failure to understand the position.
	I also support the changes that have been made to ensure fairness in selection, a proper role for local authorities and a significant reduction in the bloated and rather bureaucratic role envisaged for the office of the schools commissioner in the White Paper. Nevertheless, one or two fundamental changes are still needed. One involves the Secretary of State's power to veto a local authority's proposal for a new community school. I am glad she has accepted that if there is to be a competition for new schools, it must be a fair competition, and that if parents want a community school they should have that option. However, I do not buy the argument that the Secretary of State needs the power to prevent a local authority from proposing an inappropriate scheme.
	Clause 7 provides for that veto, but only in respect of a local authority submitting a plan for a community school. If an authority submits a plan for a foundation or trust school, there will be no veto. If the aim is to restrain poorly performing local authorities, the provision should apply to all types of school. The fact that it applies only to community schools implies that a degree of bias remains, and I think that it should be removed in Committee.
	I also hope that more thought will be given to the difficult balance that must be achieved between promoting choice and diversity, which I support, and ensuring that we maintain the highest standards of quality. It is not always possible to combine the two. Measures to improve one school may well be compromised and undermined by measures to expand another. In my area, a clear and co-ordinated approach has enabled a hugely successful post-16 campus to be created alongside the sixth forms of a number of existing schools. That co-ordination has ensured the widest possible choice of curriculums and courses, and the maintenance of quality. If there were a proliferation of small sixth forms, all constrained by a lack of resources and unable to provide such a wide opportunity, quality and choice would be undermined.
	The issues are complex. I felt that the speech of the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), in which he promoted diversity and choice, was a little superficial. He did not recognise that there are difficult challenges to be addressed. Addressing those challenges will depend on local authorities' having an understanding of the issues, an ability to engage with all the parties and the power to ensure a co-ordinated approach not just to education, but to the wider Every Child Matters agenda. That is why the crucial role of local education authorities must be maintained, asI am glad to saymy right hon. Friend and her colleagues now recognise.
	I am a little nervous about the fact that there is still a tendency to try to write the local authority out of the scene and I hope that it will be countered. The Conservatives need only talk to their own representatives in local government to realise that it is recognised on a cross-party basis that local authorities have an important role to play, and that rhetorical attacks on them and attempts to wipe them off the scene are counter-productive.
	I hope that there will be further changes to the Bill in Committee, and that the Committee stage will be constructive but not excessively prolonged. With those reservations, I shall be happy to vote for Second Reading.

John Maples: I share the lukewarm support expressed by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford). I shall support the Bill. I am sorry that the Secretary of State is leaving the Chamber: I was going to say some nice things about the intelligence and eloquence of her speech being a walking argument for the highly selective education that she enjoyed.
	Our time is very restricted, and I shall deal with just one very specific issuewhat I believe is the failure of the state system to deal with very talented and intelligent children. In my view, that failure has become abundantly clear. I can cite two studies, one of which was conducted recently by a professor of education at York university. He took a sample of 5 per cent. of the most able pupils at key stage 2, aged 11. Of those pupils37,50030,000 went into the state sector and 7,500 went into the independent sector. At the age of 16, almost every pupil who had entered the independent sector achieved five A or A* grades at GCSE, but only two thirds of those in the state sector did. At the age of 18, almost every pupil in the private sector achieved three As at A-level, while only 40 per cent. of those in the state sector achieved the same result. It is not surprising that when we look at the entry to really good universities, we see that it is skewed even further. The state sector is letting down bright pupils.
	Anyone who wishes to dispute that evidence should look at the Department's own statistics. They show a happy improvement in the percentage of young adults attaining three As at A-level in all sectors. However, in the independent sector it has risen from 17 per cent. to 26 per cent., an increase of just over 50 per cent.; in the selective state sector it has risen from 12.5 per cent. to 20.5 per cent., an increase of slightly morenearly 60 per cent.; and in comprehensive schools it has risen only from 4.7 per cent. to 5.7 per cent., an increase of 20 per cent. Not only is that group of children being let down by the state sector, and particularly by the comprehensives; the gap is becoming wider. Those in selective schools in the state sector, or in independent schools, are doing better and better as time goes by in comparison with those in the state comprehensive sector.
	That is obviously palpably unfair to the children involved. They are bright kids, who are not receiving the education that they need and deserve to develop their talents for the purpose of their own lives. It is also bad for the country, however. Our economy relies heavily on the development of high technology, and if we are to have judges, doctors and professors of medicine, we need the brightest people we can get. Whatever their background, those people must have the education that is appropriate to them.
	What should we do? Lip service is paid to this issue, and my party talks a lot about streaming, which has its part to play. To judge by schools in my constituency, there is much more streaming than there used to be, but only big schools with a lot of teachers can stream in more than a few subjects, because it is resource-demanding. The Government have a gifted children programme, but it does not do what is called for. People do not want a national academy for gifted schoolchildren; what they want is for the school that their child attends to be able to teach them and to enable them to fulfil their potential.
	Having represented two different constituencies, my view is that a school's ethos is absolutely crucial. If most of a given school's parents value education, the children do their homework, they learn from other pupils and there is a competitive academic environment, very bright kids will flourish. Some comprehensive schools have that ethos and almost all independent and grammar schools do, by definition, but it needs a critical mass. The constituency that I used to represent was an inner-city area, and my current constituency is a largely rural, very prosperous middle class area. I wish that there had not been a gap between my two periods of service in this House, but that gap has given me a perspective on both situations.
	We have grammar schools in Stratford, but in fact the high schools and the comprehensives are also pretty good, and I suspect that they are able to deal with bright kids. However, in the main comprehensive school in the part of inner-city London that I used to represent, only 10 per cent. of children used to get five GCSE grades at A to Cfrankly, for most purposes, a C is a failso what chance did bright kids have there? On examining the percentage of children with special educational needs and the number of unauthorised absences from schoola euphemism for truancyit is clear that there is not much difference between the two types of school. The problem is the critical mass and the expectations.

Meg Hillier: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, compared with the factors that he is describing, there is a greater correlation between class and poverty and education and attainment? Does the Bill not begin to address such inequalities, which are creating the divides that he mentions?

John Maples: I wish that I thought that that was true; however, the hon. Lady is absolutely right to mention this issue. Very bright children in constituencies such as mine whose parents can afford to send them to independent schools will be all right; it is the bright working class kids whom the hon. Lady is concerned about who are getting left behind. This Bill goes nowhere near far enough; indeed, it is not designed to address that issue. Diversity might produce better results in some cases, but it is unlikely to do so.
	We have got to accept that different children need slightly different forms of education. I am open to persuasion on whether such a division should be made at 11, 14 or 16, or whether it can be made within the same school. I would love to believe that bog-standard comprehensives, or the new ones in which the Bill will result, can deal with this problem, but I suspect that they cannot. We cannot pretend that we can give everyone the same education, because that simply will not work. In the school to which I referred earlierit is in Lewishamwhere 10 per cent. of children get 5 GCSEs at grades A to C, the child who does their homework, is interested in work and listens during lessons is a freak. The whole culture of the school is against such children, and it is they who are suffering.

Linda Gilroy: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Maples: No. I am not particularly arguing for the creation of new grammar schools, because there may be other solutions, but if I were I would not locate them in constituencies such as mine; I would put them in constituencies such as the inner-city one that I used to represent.

Linda Gilroy: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Maples: No, I am in the middle of making a point. That way, bright children from poor backgrounds who are currently being let down would have a school with the critical mass to enable them to aspire to achieve their potential. It is not constituencies such as mine that have this problem; it is those that many Labour Members represent.
	I do not understand why no selection has become such an ideological sacred cow. Life is full of selection. We believe in selection for musical aptitude at school, and in ruthless selection for school sports teams. At age 18, we have one of the most ruthless education cut-offs and transitions that one could dream of, so I do not buy the idea that there should be no differentiation between pupils and their educational needs.
	I am not sure what the solution is, but perhaps the Minister will address this point when she winds up. What about the very bright kids, whom I worry are being let down by the current system? At some point, the sacred cow of no selection will come into contact with the altar of progress, and we will have to accept that bright kids need a different kind of education from most others if they are to achieve their potential, if the economy is to benefit from their skills and abilities, and if our society as a whole is to get the most able people into the jobs that we need them to do.

Edward O'Hara: Like other speakers, when I read the White Paper I was profoundly depressed. The expression that came to mind then was one that I had often used when I witnessed in opposition the attempts of the Conservative Government to divide and dismantle our education system. I used to say that they were creating an educational archipelago. We all know what can happen in archipelagos. People can lose their way, and those who find a better island in their travels can be sure that it has already been occupied. Of course, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago showed us, people can lose their life opportunities if they lose their way and are stranded in an archipelago. I need not develop the image further, which can apply to a divided education system.
	However, I am much encouraged by the Bill before us. I am encouraged by the tightening of the provisions on admissions, by the proposals for 14 to 19-year-olds in part 5, and particularly by clause 149, which we could call the Knowsley model. That model was pioneered in Knowsley and we are proud to have made that contribution to the development of education policy. I am also encouraged by clause 17, which looks promising and deals with another area in which Knowsley has been in the vanguard of delivering the Government's policies. It is certainly in tune with Every Child Matters.
	On co-operation between schools and the sharing and dissemination of good practice, we in Knowsley have a philosophy and policy of corporate entrepreneurship. It works well, and there is a commonality between politicians, administrators, head teachers and teachers. All are concerned that this philosophy should not be undermined by the intrusion of the individual entrepreneurship of school trustsa danger intrinsic in this Bill but, I hope, one that can be avoided. Rather than a rigid model based on individual schools, we want trusts to be developed in a local context, not spanning local authority boundaries, but perhaps including several schools being federated in trusts. Such co-operation is the spirit, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) said, of the Every Child Matters agendaa spirit that consciously aligns with other Bills before the House on child care and vulnerable children.
	The agenda that we in Knowsley espouse is an holistic one. It is no accident that the title of director of education in Knowsley has been replaced by director of children's services, thereby indicating this systemic, inclusive, corporate and holistic agenda. I seek assurance from the Government that that agenda will be allowed to prosper once the Bill is enacted. I am encouraged by earlier remarks by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, both in the House and outside, that that might be the case and that there is the possibility of a strengthened role for the local authoritycertainly more strengthened than I feared after reading the White Paper. I am also encouraged by my right hon. Friend's assurances that there will be close discussion in Committee in an effort to improve the Bill, including the criteria to enable successful local authorities to perform that appropriately strengthened role. I agree that one size should not necessarily fit all, and that applies to local authorities as well as to schools. I am optimistic that the Government now recognise that.
	Clauses 7 and 9 will allow local authorities to propose new community or community special schools, subject to the consent of the Secretary of State. As the clauses stand, it appears that my right hon. Friend still feels unable to trust local authorities to run schools, even if they have a track record of success. Knowsley has established its credentials, demonstrated by its early selection for funding support for the building schools for the future programme, a system-wide reform in a local authority context. At the end of this month, all Knowsley secondary schools will be closed and replaced with eight learning centresthe name reflects the holistic, inclusive ethos that I have already mentioned. The Bill, if appropriately framed, will provide a perfect opportunity for us in Knowsley to maximise the implementation of federated trustsindeed, in a local authority the size of Knowsley, possibly one federated Knowsley trust.
	I make no apology for putting my remarks in the context of my home borough, which I am proud to represent. I have devoted more than half of my adult life to the education service in Knowsley and I want to see it improved, not damaged. I am optimistic that we can work with the Government to achieve that.
	Other local authorities are thinking along similar lines to Knowsley. In some cases, they are even taking leads from Knowsley. I put it to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that when the detail of the Bill is considered in Committee she should not lose sight of the guiding principles, which I have mentioned several times, of inclusion, holismI do not mind ismsand corporate enterprise. In Knowsley, we believe in sharing our problems and our opportunities. I usually manage to quote one of the Latin poets in my speeches, so I shall finish with a quotation from Horace, who said:
	Nam tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet.
	If the person next door's party wall is on fire, it is your problem too.

James Clappison: I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Knowsley South (Mr. O'Hara). On balance, I think that my right hon. and hon. Friends are doing the right thing in giving the Bill a Second Reading. It contains principles that Conservatives can support, although the Government have clearly gone to some trouble to try to disguise them. There are other elements about which I am less enthusiastic, and I hope that plenty of time for debate will be available in Committee. That seems to be the will of Members on both sides of the House. The hon. Gentleman argued for more time in Committee, as did the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford). Indeed, the Secretary of State conceded that we needed to spend more time in Committee on the criteria according to which local education authorities can promote new community schools.
	This is not only a Labour debate and it is not only the Labour party that is having an internal debate to try to perfect the Bill. We want to have our say, as do other parties. We all care very much about making the Bill as good as possible. It would be difficult for us to oppose a Bill that sets out to promote Conservative themes, which we have supported for such a long time, as my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) so ably pointed out in his opening speech, as did my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), drawing on his experience as Secretary of State. Indeed, when he described how the White Paper chimes with previous Conservative thinking, the Secretary of State did not look as comfortable as she might have done. At one point, when my right hon. and learned Friend was quoting from the Government's White Paper, she had the sort of expression one would have when some dreadful family secret was about to be unearthed.
	How could we oppose a White Paper and a Bill that set out Conservative themes such as diversity and choice in schools? Clause 2 is entitled:
	Duties in relation to diversity and choice.
	It will place local education authorities under a duty to promote diversity and choice in the provision of schools. In 1992, the Conservative Government produced a White Paper entitled Choice and Diversity. The Government speak of diversity and choice, but the underlying themes are the same.
	The 1992 White Paper identified five great themes in Conservative education policyquality, diversity, parental choice, greater school autonomy and greater accountability. Those five themes ran through the Secretary of State's speech today. Labour Members may not have been comfortable with that, but I felt comfortable when I heard her talk about those themesif not some of her other themes. [Interruption.] If the Minister demurs from any one of those five themes, I would be interested to hear from him.
	The problem is that I am not yet convinced that the Bill will make the difference that I would like to see it make to the education of our children, especially those who live in the most difficult areas and attend the most testing schools. Will we see the broad, across the board progress that parents are crying out for, especially in secondary education in the difficult areas? Ministers tell us that progress is being made in secondary education. Every week, they pray in aidthe Prime Minister did so todaythe increasing number of good grades at GCSE and A-level. Grades have been improving, as they were before 1997. However, the conclusion that because grades have been improving over a long time standards are rising depends on the heroic assumption that standards are as high at GCSE and A-level as they were in the past. That is not an assumption that everybody finds it easy to make. It may not be comfortable for any of us to say that, but it is not a unanimous assumption[Interruption.] Well, I shall ask the Minister directly. Does he believe that standards, in the curriculum and the results, are as high today as they were 20 or 30 years ago?

Phil Hope: Of course they are.

James Clappison: We can debate that in the context of the Bill's provisions on curricula and entitlements. However, one piece of worrying evidence is the drift from the study of subjects that some would say demand a high degree of academic rigour, such as science and modern foreign languages, and a move toward subjects that many would regard as less rigorous.
	For example, since 1997 there has been a collapse in the number of students studying modern foreign languages at A-level, although Spanish has more or less held its own. That has happened under a Government who say that they want this country to play its full part in Europe.
	Every bit as worrying is the decline in science. The number of students entering for science A-levels has been in steady decline since 1997. Last year, significantly fewer students began A-level studies in biology, physics and chemistry than in 1997, and the decline is especially marked in physics and chemistry. That has happened under a Government who have said that they want the work force of the future to be better and more technologically equipped, with more children going into higher education to study scientific and technical subjects.
	Last weekend, we heard of the closure of the chemistry department at Sussex university, which followed hard on the heels of the loss of the chemistry departments at Exeter, King's college, London, Queen Mary's college, London, Dundee and Surrey. That is not a trend that is good for the future of our country, and it needs to be reversed. We hope that the Bill, and other measures to be introduced, will go some way towards changing that trend, but we must wait to see what happens. Will the Bill make a difference? Does the Minister believe that it will lead to a revival in school science? Such a revival would be evidenced by more children choosing to study science subjects through to A-level.

Phil Hope: Yes.

James Clappison: The Minister says yes, but we shall find out in due course. We shall also debate the matter in Committee.
	My next question deals more generally with trust schoolsor foundation schools, or double foundation schools, however they may be camouflaged by the Government. Will the Minister say how many brand new additional schools of that type will be established as a result of the Bill? How many existing schools will choose to go down that route?
	Many questions will have to be examined in great detail in Committee. We want the Bill to make a real difference. At present, it will not do enough in that respect, but we will take every opportunity to make as much difference as we can, for the sake of the futures of the children about whom we have been speaking.
	I do not believe that the Bill as it stands will make a difference on the scale that is needed. For that, parents will have to wait a little longer.

Gordon Marsden: Labour Members have argued long and passionately over the past few weeks about how to transform the White Paper into this Bill, and those who belong to the Select Committee have done so in a way that I consider to be both constructive and positive. Our passion stems from something deep in our psyche, history and personal experience, as we all have people in our families who have failed the 11-plus or been the first to go to university. We know that knowledge is power, and that the ability to rise out of adverse circumstances can be delivered only by education, principally in school.
	As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) made so clear, those factors are the rocks and stones on which our party is built. Of all this Government's achievements since 1997, we are most proud of the achievements in education. We must continue to get this issue right, and it is crucial that we go on talking about education, education, education.
	Structures are important, but so are individualsindividual teachers, and individual schools and initiatives. The Bill contains important provisions in respect of personalised learning that deserve support, but we must also look at its community context. It is crucial to get the educational environment right, and that is why the proposals on transport and discipline are so important. The revolution that the Bill will promote in respect of school meals is also very significant, as is getting the curriculum right, with parental support. The proposals in respect of children aged 14 to 19 may not go far enough, but they are important as well. The Bill covers a big agenda, and we must get it right.
	The Bill should be radical, as it is about taking us forward to the next generation. Its framework must be robust enough to be worth arguing about and not simply rejected. I have not found myself in agreement with Roy Hattersley very often in recent times, but he was right to say in his article in The Guardian that MPs who want to vote for the perfect Bill will wait forever.
	The Second Reading of the Bill should be a debate about broad principles and aspiration, but it would be wrong if we did not look also at some of the specific concerns that I hope that Ministers are beginning to address. The devil is always in the detail, but we should look to replace that with a few angels in the architecture. The Select Committee report tried to achieve that, and the common theme of all its recommendations was that there should be co-operation and collaboration.
	Labour Members have consistently advocated an approach based on co-operation and collaboration. In my constituency, that will provide a crucial test of whether the proposals usher in a progressive future or leave us in a dead end.
	In Blackpool, we are proud of our specialist schools, but without them spreading their best practice to other schools in the area that have not been so fortunate, and converting those schools, the reforms would have been stillborn. Therefore, there needs to be far more leverage to achieve the sort of thing that the Secretary of State and others have talked about today.
	The philosopher Thomas Hobbes said that
	covenants, without the sword, are but words.
	If hon. Members want that translated into 21st century language, it means that if the Government will the ends that they talk about for collaboration and co-operation, they must also will the means. In order to do that, there are a number of specific things that they must look at, such as making the model of trust schools a collaborative one, as so many have said today and as the Select Committee recommended in paragraphs 57 and 68 of the report. We need federations that will act alongside local authorities, which must be the overall commissioners of education and we must ensure that the Bill impacts positively on all children in a local area. If the Government are not prepared to place the statutory obligation on schools to collaborate, they must provide stronger incentives for collaboration and partnership.
	Schools must all face the same rules, and that is particularly true of children with special educational needs. Parents of children with a statement should have the same right of access to trust schools as they should have to an academy or to any other school. I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State touch on this issue. We need action on this matter urgently because there is already anecdotal evidence that academies are not practising fair admissions for children with special educational needs. If we have trust schools, we must make sure that they do not go down the same route. It is important that schools should be subject to the same scrutiny under local authorities. Admission forums must be encouraged to work together. If they do not, the system will not work.
	The role of the schools commissioner was referred to and we touched on this point in the Select Committee. Frankly, I do not believe that a schools commissioner who is purely and simply a civil servant within the Department will deliver the expanded egalitarian role that we have heard about. We need to look at that in Committee and the Government need to look for someone with a fresh viewpoint and a fresh mind.
	That is particularly true in terms of ensuring that the needs of disadvantaged children are properly maintained and represented by the commissioner. It is instructive that the briefings that many of us have received from organisations such as the Children's Society, the National Autistic Society, Barnardo's and the Campaign for Racial Equality have all touched on this point. It comes back to leverage again; we need to make sure that local authorities focus on securing fair access for all pupils.
	I want to say something about the Select Committee's comments on benchmarks. A lot of nonsense has been spoken about them, as if they were some form of Stalinist quota. That was never the intention of the Select Committee. The analogy should be with what happens in higher education and the Higher Education Funding Council for England; we should promote, encourage and, from time to time, name and shame. The idea that this is a Stalinist process of quotas should be thrown out of the window. If that is an issue of concern to the Government, they should revisit it.
	Children with special educational needs need to given explicit priority in admissions criteria because two thirds of the exclusions at the moment are of children with special educational needs.
	The Bill is all about providing a platform to progress our life demands. The Bill will be judged by the way in which nothing is done to chip away at that platform. We need to make sure that the direction of travel is one of collaboration, and not division. That is the responsibility of the Government team, and I expect to see it delivered in Committee and on Report.

Phil Willis: May I say[Hon. Members: Hear, hear.] I thank hon. Members very much indeed, but they are taking up my time.
	We certainly welcome some elements of the Bill. Clause 1 emphasises the role that local authorities should play in improving standards for all children. Quite frankly, I take that as a givenindeed, it was stated for the first time in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998and it is good see it re-emphasised. The point made by the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) about looked-after children is absolutely right. We very much welcome the Government's recognition that we must have a strong disciplinary framework in our schools to which people can relate and in which teachers in particular feel safer.
	The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and the hon. Member for Knowsley South (Mr. O'Hara) both made very telling speeches in their own ways. They both emphasised that their constituencies have dynamic local authorities. Sheffield was Liberal Democrat-led and is now Labour-led, and it has taken on our great ideas. [Interruption.] I shall carry on while I am winning. Those local authorities have been doing exactly what they should be doing: providing dynamic leadership in the schools in their communities and delivering results.
	The schools in Sheffield, Brightsidethey were mentioned by the right hon. Member for Sheffield Brightsideachieved those results and improvements despite the Bill. They did not need the threat of trust schools coming along. They did not need wealthy individuals to put in 2 million to get 25 million of Government capital to improve. They improved because the local authorities believed that such things were important. The work going on in Knowsley South is, quite frankly, inspirational.

Angela Smith: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that schools in Sheffield, Brightside have enjoyed relationships with external partners via the education action zone and, in addition, that the chair of the local sixth-form college was Sir Hugh Sykesa local benefactor of Sheffield schools?

Phil Willis: The hon. Lady makes my point exactlythe Bill is not needed to do all that is claimedand I am grateful to her for emphasising that fact.
	This is a Conservative Bill, but Labour Members will support it in the Lobby tonight. We heard the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) make it absolutely clear that these are Tory proposals. Labour Members can dance on the head of a pin about whether or not the Bill will create grant-maintained schools mark 2, but the reality is that that is exactly what they will be. That is why the Bill has so excited Tory Members under their new leadership.
	We have only to go back to what Lady Thatcher said at the Tory party conference in 1987:
	Give parents and governors the right to take their children's schools out of the hands of the local authority.
	Little did she know that a Labour Prime Minister would do exactly that, but the question that we as a partymy hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) made an outstanding contribution in her first speech in her new roleand, indeed, those Labour Back Benchers who have the courage to stick to their Labour principles have to answer is, in fact, whether these are the right proposals.
	First, where is the evidence? I asked the right hon. and learned Member for Ruscliffe, who is a former Secretary of State for Education and Science, and the current Secretary of State to produce any evidence to support the proposals. The White Paper said:
	the expanded involvement of the private sector will improve education.
	Where is the evidence that that will occur? It said that, under the Bill,
	all will benefit from an education service based on choice and diversity.
	Where is the evidence for that? Not a single bit have the Government been able to produce in support of that claim. It also said that
	parents want to attend Parent Councils and establish new schools.
	Where did that come from? There is no evidence at all that that is what parents want. The vast majority of parents want good local schools, and when they have had the opportunity to take up some of those advantages, they have not taken them.
	Let us consider the grant-maintained system. Despite the fact that schools were bribed to become grant-maintained and extra resources were involved, how many did it? Just fewer than 1,000 primary and secondary schools took up that offer. Let us take the Education Act 2002

Lynne Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Phil Willis: Not now, as I am in full flow.
	Let us take the Education Act 2002. We again argued whether all schools should have the power to innovate and have earned autonomy unless they were under special measures. The Government refused that, but exactly the powers that could underpin most of what is in the Bill are in place. What have we had from schools, parents and governors since 2002? Three schools have asked for permission to change the school day. That is how excited parents and governors are about actually changing things. There is no evidence. I wish there was more time, but I shall give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones)

Lynne Jones: Of course, the Government will argue that no school would have to opt for trust status; it is purely voluntary. However, does the hon. Gentleman share my concerns that there are all sorts of ways in which the Government coerce schools to do what they perceive the Government want? In Birmingham, there are proposals for seven academies. There is no demand for that, but the Tory-Lib Dem controlled LEA is forced to go down that route, because that is the only way that it knows that it will get the desperately needed funding for the schools.

Phil Willis: The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and the Minister knows that she is right. The point applies wherever one goes in the country. For example, to get money from the building schools for the future programme, Newcastle had to include an academy in its proposals. I do not believe that that gives choice. It is back to the nonsense that we heard the other night when the Home Secretary told us that having a passport was voluntary. It is just semantics at the end of the day.
	One of the great myths in the Bill is that the creation of choice and diversity means that the good schools will suddenly, because of trust status, say, Ah, we want to take the most disadvantaged, unruly, disruptive kids from the estate down the road so that we can expand. That is absolute and utter nonsense. There is not a single piece of evidence for that. Successful schools are successful because of their size, catchment area and parental involvement. The idea that we will deal with disadvantage simply by creating trusts is absolute nonsense.
	Before the last general election, the Government betrayed most of our schools and most of our youngsters by their betrayal of the Tomlinson report and its proposals. There is a sop to vocational education in the Billa sop that continues the myth that academic education is for the best and vocational education is for the rest. Lady Lumley's school is in North Yorkshire where it is sometimes 30 miles to the nearest school let alone the nearest college. One cannot have there the sort of diversity that is prayed in aid by the Secretary of State and Ministers. In reality, the Secretary of State will decide the vocational curriculum; it will not be individual schools. There will not be that flexibility.
	Wherever I goI am sure that this applies to every Member of the HouseI am constantly bombarded by companies that say that they cannot get people with the right skills. They are talking about the right skills from levels 2 and 3 and right up to graduate and postgraduate levels. The Bill does absolutely nothing to create a 21st century curriculum. All it does, yet again, is show that this is a controlling Government who have now reformed themselves in the image of Mrs. Thatcher. They should be ashamed.

Martin Salter: What a horrible image.
	When Dr. Philip Cowley updates his next pamphlet on Back-Bench rebellions, he might like to consider the following subtitle: The Education White Paper: How to lose friends and fail to influence people. I give credit to the Government for eventually and grudginglyat times, it felt like pulling teethmaking important concessions in response to the concerns raised both in the alternative White Paper and by the Education and Skills Committee, teachers, schools governors and many others. However, there have been spectacular gaffes along the way, most notably when hon. Members were told that their concerns were misplaced and would all disappear once we truly understood the nature of the White Paper. I have to say, spinning a set of proposals to curry favour with the Daily Mail and patronising the hell out of Labour MPs is an interesting, but inadvisable political tactic and I trust that Ministers have learned from it.
	I was in the Department for Education and Skills for a very short time as the White Paper was being prepared. It became clear to me that my role as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Schools would be to promote the White Paper proposals among my colleaguessomething that I was simply not prepared to do. It is not that everything in the White Paper is necessarily objectionable or runs contrary to Labour values. In fact, the points of contention about trusts, admissions and the role of local education authorities are contained in a comparatively short section of the White Paper: some 28 pages in a 116-page document.
	Perhaps most objectionable of all, however, was the contention put forward without a single shred of evidence that good local education authorities are an inevitable drag anchor on progress and innovation. That was pure dogma, inserted into the middle of an otherwise reasonably acceptable White Paper. We know where it came from, and I have to say that it was not from the Department for Education and Skills. Poor LEAs have to be dealt with, but good LEAs offer support and encouragement and play a vital co-ordinating role in helping schools to improve and in driving up standards. They did not deserve to be trashed as they were in the White Paper and I trust that they will not be again.

David Taylor: A good LEA is the one in the county of Leicestershire, which has never been controlled by the Labour party, so this is not a partisan point. Does my hon. Friend agree that the analysis of the White Paper and the Bill is still very much a metropolitan one? It has little to offer in many areas of the country. Would it not have been better to pilot some of the ideas, such as trust schools, to see whether they work in some contexts?

Martin Salter: I seem to recall that in the alternative White Paper, which I think that Ministers truly understand now, we suggested piloting trusts. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: that is not a party political point.
	It became clear to me that, without significant reform, an education Bill based on the White Paper would not command wide support on the Labour Benches and elsewhere. In his introduction to the White Paper, the Prime Minister quite rightly emphasises the real improvements in education since 1997. Teachers' pay is 20 per cent. higher in real terms. There are an extra 32,000 teachers and 130,000 support staff. There is improved literacy and numeracy. Ofsted reports that the proportion of good and excellent teaching in primary schools has risen from 45 per cent. to 74 per cent. There have been big improvements in GCSE results and more children are gaining university places. All of that has been achieved within existing structures.
	Recently, however, we appear to be in danger of talking down our own achievements and implying that further progress cannot be achieved or sustained. That is in marked contrast to our earlier education mantra: standards, not structures. Labour MPs and Labour councillors were entitled to ask what had changed, where the evidence was and where the proposals came from. At the last election, in the Labour document Schools forward not back, we attacked Tory education policy. The document stated:
	The current catchment areas used by schools would be abolished and schools would be forced to introduce their own admissions system. This policy would see the end of community based schools and lead to a massive increase in bureaucracy for headteachers, with each school having to design their own admissions process.
	The fundamental concerns of many colleagues centred around the potential for pupils from poorer areas to be disadvantaged as popular schools expanded and wealthier and better informed parents were able to set up their own schools, operating their own admissions policy. There was also concern that local education policy should remain democratically accountablesomething lamentably missing from the tenor of the debate.

Jeremy Corbyn: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Martin Salter: I have given way once, so I will not.
	Sir Jeremy Beecham, leader of the Local Government Association labour group, said of the White Paper:
	The proposals around admissions, the planning of new schools and the expansion of popular schools give insufficient leverage to councils to maximise fairness or the efficient use of resources.
	Small wonder that there was such a hostile reaction to the publication of the original White Paper. In fact, 95 Labour MPs eventually backed our alternative White Paper, which was fairly entitled Shaping the Education BillReaching for Consensus. It challenged the absence of a mandatory code; the ban on local authorities promoting new community schools; and any attempts to force trusts on communities by financial inducement or ministerial diktat. The Government have listened, and conceded those substantive points with assurances of more movement and clarification in Committee.
	All seven of us who were proud to co-author the alternative White Paper have come to the conclusion that it is worth consolidating the gains that have been made. We have spent three months of our lives on the issue, and none of us wants to throw away what has been achieved or to disengage from the process. Colleagues who are thinking of voting down the Bill on Second Reading should realise that disengaging from the process at this point is subcontracting education policy from the Labour party and the Labour Government to the Opposition. That is not something that any of us came to Parliament to do. My message to colleagues still concerned about aspects of the Bill is to stick with it: continue to engage with the process by supporting the Government on Second Reading but reassess the situation when the Bill returns to the House on Report. That is what parliamentary democracy is supposed to be about. We can all make grand gestures on Second Reading but, quite frankly, some of the issues have become conflated. I have a view about how long our Prime Minister should carry on, but I do not think it should be confused with the issue of how we vote on the future of our kids' education.

Edward Leigh: What an interesting speech. Remembering Michael Foot's words about ratting and reratting, I believe that it generally helps to stay in one corner.
	The Prime Minister knows that I am a great admirer of his, and I very much welcome what he said in the White Paper. It is unpopular to hold such a position in the Conservative party nowadays, but he and I are born-again Thatcherites. We both believe that state schools should be fundamentally independent. I hope that he will forgive me, but I am an impoverished middle-class refugee who has fallen on hard times and travels across several boroughs to send his children to the London Oratory.

John Bercow: Surely not all six of them.

Edward Leigh: No, not all sixI mix and match like all the other middle-class parents.

Phil Willis: How did the hon. Gentleman get his children in on parental interview?

Edward Leigh: We got on very well in parental interview.
	John McIntosh, the headmaster, has asked me how one can achieve choice and diversity in a schooland he does sounless one interviews parents. My hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) and other hon. Members have made an important point. There is not a problem in my rural, prosperous constituency, which has a mix of grammar and comprehensive schools. We have two excellent grammar schools that regularly appear among the top 20 state schools in league tables, and comprehensive schools, such as William Farr, whose headmaster told me only a few weeks ago that he already has a foundation school. The Bill will not make a scrap of difference to him, as it is now so hedged around with caveats on admissions and the code of conduct that in many parts of the country it will make very little difference.
	I wish to talk about inner London, as I feel strongly about the problem that we face in metropolitan areasan issue rightly raised by my hon. Friend. The London borough of Hammersmith has the fastest growing population of parents who send their children to private schools. Unless they can get their children into free schools, which are Lady Margaret school, the London Oratory or the Sacred Heart school, they will not stay in the state sector. That is the problem. Surely middle class parentspeople in the Labour party who want diversityshould be worried about that. Why are people fleeing from state schools in inner London and the metropolitan areas?

Peter Kilfoyle: The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of it, but there are middle class parents all over the country. Why should they have to suffer the downside of the Bill, which is markedly London-centric? Surely the problems that he is adumbrating and the problems addressed in the Bill revolve around the situation in London, more than anywhere else in the country.

Edward Leigh: That may arise from the situation where both the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister send their children to state schools in inner London. That is not my problem, is it? The hon. Gentleman must put that question to his own colleagues. I can speak only from my personal experience of my constituency and of London. I do not know a lot about Liverpool. I apologise. I cannot speak about it. It is much better in the House to speak from one's own experience.
	To those who knock the London Oratory, all I can say is that it is a school that gets a huge, diverse social mix. It is a school that works. It draws pupils from 40 boroughs.

Jeremy Corbyn: Does the hon. Gentleman understand that those of us who represent inner London constituencies have seen enormous improvements in the past five years in our local secondary schools? Our concern about the Bill is that it will take away the most able children, who will be able to get out to the suburban schools, which have the space and the money to expand, and we will return to a situation where the inner London comprehensives are seen as second best and school of last resort for too many parents. We want a continuation of the excellent levels of funding that we are getting, which have so dramatically improved our inner-city comprehensives. We want comprehensive schools.

Edward Leigh: I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. I know the philosophy that he agrees with. I apologise to him; I do not agree. The evidence from all over the worldfrom Sweden, Denmark, Chile, America and many other countries

Paul Holmes: What about Finland?

Edward Leigh: apart from Finland, which is a small country of 5 million people with no large urban areas. From all over the world, the message is that competition and choice work.
	The particular problem that I have with the Bill, as my colleagues know, is with regard to faith schools, particularly the ban on interviews. I know that many Labour Members in particular do not like the idea that schools have the right to interview parents. I know that it is said that that is just a small problem now.

Helen Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Leigh: No, I cannot give way again. I apologise.
	I know that only a small number of schools interview, but up to the imposition of the code of practice, 80 per cent. of Catholic schools in London used to interview. There is a very good reason for that. Surely it is not fair on Catholic priests, Anglican priests or anybody else that they should become spiritual policemen. We all know what happens in some of the oversubscribed schools. People turn up to churches and try to make themselves known to the parish priest. The parish priest has to sign the chit, having no idea who they are. Is it right that the onus should be put on the priest? Much better that it should be on the school.
	I am rather sad that the Secretary of State, who understands Catholic education and involves herself in it, should have been party to a mean little device to ban the small number of schools that interview from interviewing. It is said, I know, that those schools interview because they want to cherry-pick middle class parents.

Paul Holmes: They are just trying to select.

Edward Leigh: Maybe those schools want to protect their ethos. Up to a few years ago, they could interview on the basis of the general ethos of the school. What is wrong with a school wanting to protect its ethos? What is wrong with giving a Catholic school or a Jewish, Muslim or Anglican school a chance to protect its ethos?
	I heard a sotto voce intervention suggesting that the schools were just trying to select. That is not true.

Paul Holmes: It is true.

Edward Leigh: It is not true. I speak from personal experience. The London Oratory, the Cardinal Vaughan

Paul Holmes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Leigh: I cannot give way again because of the time limit, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. He should look carefully at the schools, as I do. The fact is that they band: 30 per cent. the most able, 30 per cent. the middle, and 30 per cent. the least able. They are genuine comprehensives. People may not like them for other reasons, but they are trying to protect their ethos, whether Catholic or Anglican. Why should they not be allowed to do so? Why should the Secretary of State take this great sledgehammer to crack this tiny nut, especially when there are schools in inner London that, unlike many schools, are attracting parents from every social stratum? The Labour party should be in favour of that. It should want state schools to attract middle-class parents. It should not want ghetto neighbourhood comprehensives that middle-class people do not want to go to. Why are the Government trying to change the ethos of the very schools that are successful in difficult areas and are achieving what the Government want; that is, a social mix? I feel strongly about that.
	I also feel strongly about the role of the adjudicator. I talked to the Catholic Education Service about this last night. It is extremely worried because the adjudicator will be given untrammelled new powers. I have talked widely about this to headmasters and other people. At the moment, the adjudicator can step in and interfere in the admission criteria for that year only. Under the Bill, the adjudicator can step in and make indefinite changes. It is a huge extension of the power of the adjudicator and the Secretary of State. We should be worried about that.
	Some of us are also worried about the role of school improvement partnersSIPsappointed by local authorities. They will be able to range widely over schools and interfere. They will be a sort of commissar from the LEA. Why are they in the Bill? The ban on interviews, the role of the school adjudicator and school improvement partners are all something to be worried about.
	What would I hope for from a Bill such as this? What would I hope that the next Conservative Government would produce? I believe in a Government creating independent state schools. That is the way forward. There is no reason why we should not achieve that.
	Why do we have so little trust in head teachers? Why do we assume that if we give them power over selection, hiring and firing or excluding we will somehow create a load of new grammar schools, God forbid? There are only 165 grammar schools in the country, but 3,500 schools. If we gave powers to head teachers to do as they know best and to run their schools in the way that they believe in, there would not be radical change. Of course, there would be incremental change, and gradually some schools might become more selective, but maybe not. In the independent sector, there are schools that are selective and schools that are not. There are schools that cater for every whim. I cannot understand why, when we have this great opportunity, at the same time that we are creating new trust schools we are loading more control over them. There used to be a cry, Trust the people. I say, Trust the schools. I say to my hon. Friends that when they vote for the Bill tonight, they should amend it to ensure that we get the real freedom that the Conservative party believes in.

Martin Linton: I welcome the changes that have been made between the White Paper and the Bill, particularly those to the admissions code. In Wandsworth, there are a lot of partially selective schools, so I am thankful for the ban on the expansion of such schools. There was an anomaly in the Education Act 1998 that allowed adjudicators to increase as well as decrease the level of selection where it has been decreased since 1998. I see Committee stage as an opportunity to close that loophole.
	Trust schools seem to be the most controversial part of the Bill. I take them very seriously. Last month, some colleagues and I went to Sweden to look at one of the models for trust schools used by the White Paper team, to see for ourselves and reach our own conclusions. No doubt, we have reached different conclusions, but we have done so on the evidence of our own eyes. Sweden has schools that are fully funded by local authorities. They get the same funding per pupil as local authority schools and are not allowed to charge fees. They are not allowed to select in any shape or form, but they are independently owned. Some are parents' co-ops, some are Montessori-type schools, some are Church schools, but about half of them are owned by businesses. That would be precluded by this legislation.
	When those schools were set up 15 years ago, they had three aims: to widen choice, to raise standards and to reduce costs. I shall briefly set out their experience. They have widened choice, mainly by introducing new teaching methods in their curriculumnot only Montessori but many otherswhich have spread out to local authority schools, too. Some of the schools introduced new specialisms that are also spreading to the local authority sector. Some use personalised timetables and personalised level groups, whereby children are taught not in year groups but according to the level they have reached in a subject; for example, a student could be in year 3 for English and year 6 for mathematics. Those new methods are spreading throughout the system, so there has been some widening of choice.
	Raising standards is a key aim. The schools obtain higher grades than local authority schools, but that is not surprising as, on average, they are more likely to be in higher income areas. They also have higher added value, which research has shown fairly conclusively. The key question is whether they have had any effect on the rest of the school sector. It was said earlier that there was no evidence, but in Sweden there certainly is evidence that the existence of those free schoolsonly 8 per cent. of the totalhas raised standards in local authority schools. The evidence is not wholly conclusive; there have been four studies, not all of which reached a statistically significant conclusion, but those that did so show that the rest of the system has improved. That is mainly because the free schools are more likely to be innovative, which acts as a spur to innovation change in the local authority sector, where schools are changing in directions pioneered by the independent schools.
	In terms of reducing costs, the schools have been a complete failure. At first, in some areas, they succeeded in reducing costs, but the costs have now increased. Local authority schools have had to raise their game to compete with the nearest independent school and have had to carry a fair amount of overcapacity to make choice a reality. What some people considered a way of reducing costs has turned out to be more expensive, which causes planning difficulties for local authorities. They do not know how many children will be enrolled in their schools in August or September because the independent schools are in the market, too. Overcapacity may be the price we have to pay for real choice.
	The independent schools make up 8 per cent. of the total and only 4 per cent. of them are business-owned, so it would not be right to make grand claims on their behalf. However, we have to face the possibility that the existence of even a small independent sector may be a spur to improvement throughout the system. I have no brief for private providers in public services. In my ideal world, the public sector would provide all public services, but we have to be prepared to look at the evidence.
	Until 1999, only 4 per cent. of students at a school in my constituency were gaining A to C grades at GCSEthe sixth lowest in the country. No school in Liverpool, Manchester or Sheffield had such bad results. The school has now been turned around and the number is up to 30 per cent., which is a great achievement, but 70 per cent. of students still fail to achieve the basic A to C grades. If we are failing 70 per cent. of our children, and there is any chance that an innovation could raise the quality and standard of education for low income people, there is nothing I would not do to achieve it.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the interesting findings on our trip to Sweden was that politicians who had previously been against the independent or trust schools now support them? Because the schools had raised standards overall and brought about innovation, those politicians do not want to go back to the previous system.

Martin Linton: That is right. There is no doubt that those schools are still controversial within the Social Democratic party, where many people are against them but more are in favour. We asked many Social Democratic MPs whether they would oppose free schools if they had their time again, and every one of them said that they would still support them. Although the research is not conclusive and everyone is not of the same mind, the evidence indicates that those schools are doing a good job.
	We should all search our consciences before we vote against anything that might improve education for working-class children in this country. The middle classes always get choiceif they are not given a choice of schools, they can choose where to live, which means the same thing. We must accept that low-income people are the only group who are denied the benefits of choice and diversity, which is one of the reasons why I welcome the extension of free transport in the Bill. Many people in my constituency are trapped in a situation in which their children qualify for only low-performing schools, but that provision may enable them to spread their nets more widely. I also welcome the introduction of choice advisers, who will help people in inner cities, where it almost impossible to choose a high-performing school.
	I am not certain whether trust schools will improve things, but I hope that they do, and I therefore welcome their introduction, which is at least a positive attempt to improve the situation. I cannot prove whether the Bill will extend to low-income families the benefits that middle-class families already enjoy, but it is clearly an honest attempt to achieve that objective, and I am confident that it is a move in that direction.

Sammy Wilson: I have found the debate a bit bewildering: the Secretary of State has taunted Conservative Members with the reasons why Conservative Members should not vote for the Bill; Labour Back Benchers have tormented Liberal Democrat Members on why Liberal Democrat Members will not vote for it; and the local paper in Northern Ireland reports that Labour Whips are irritated that we might vote for it.
	We will vote for the Bill, even if Labour Whips stand at the Door of the Lobby and try to shoo us away, because we believe that the Bill is an important building block in improving educational provision for people in England. The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) has pointed out that on a Bill such as this, where it is possible to achieve consensus, we should seek consensus across the party-political divide. It is disappointing that the Labour party has adopted a Sinn Fein approachourselves alone, with no one else supporting the changes. [Hon. Members: No surrender!] Absolutely.
	We will support the Bill despite some of the concessions, which were unnecessary and are probably detrimental. When the Secretary of State introduced the White Paper, she made it clear that it was the next essential step in changing the education system for the better. Over the past weeks and months, however, we have seen her toss changes out of the front door, the back door, down the trap door and through the green door in the face of the baying old Labour rebels. Despite those concessions, the Bill contains enough to warrant our support.
	The Government are seeking to remove from schools in Northern Ireland what they are proposing for schools in England. In Northern Ireland, against the wishes not of a few party rebels, but of two thirds of the population and an overwhelming proportion of parents and teachers, the Government are seeking to impose a one-size-fits-all comprehensive system. Despite the fact that the Government are denying to the people of Northern Ireland what we want for them, we are prepared to support a Bill that will at least move towards it in England.
	The Bill is important because children deserve better than what they are getting at present. I recognise that the Government have spent considerably more money on education over the past few years. A 45 per cent. real increase in the budget is to be welcomed. However, it is not funding alone that creates change. I do not want to repeat the statistics that we hear bandied backwards and forwards between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition at Question Time about what is happening to schools. We all know the statistics about the number of children who are being taught in failing schools and so on. Funding is not the only answerthere must be structural change. I believe that the structural changes in the Bill go towards tackling the mental block among the UK public that one cannot have a good education system unless it is solely provided by the state. We need diversity and we sometimes need to lift the deadening hand of local authorities from education provision.
	Several of the measures in the Bill are welcome. Giving children greater freedom to travel will help to improve social mobility. Allowing bad schools to shrink and good schools to expand will improve efficiency and provide incentives for change. Permitting schools to apply for trust status will bring greater expertise and resourcesnot just money, but other resourcesinto the system. Encouraging schools to have that autonomy will give good leaders the opportunity to make the changes that they know are needed to improve the situation in their own local area. The enhanced disciplinary powers for teachers are welcome, given that 41 per cent. of parents indicated in a recent survey that they are concerned about school discipline.
	I regret that the Minister still has a blind prejudice against academic selection, which is a cornerstone of matching pupils to the appropriate education experience. I find that incomprehensible. In Northern Ireland, selection has worked in terms of improving social mobility, improving standards, and getting more people from working class backgrounds into university. However, I take some joy from clause 40, which allows for auditions or oral or practical tests. That, to me, is selection of a sort; the Minister can call it what she likes.
	We will go through the Lobby to support the Bill. We hope that no more concessions will be made in Committee, that some of the weaknesses that have been identified will be addressed, and that some provisions will be strengthened to give youngsters a better chance of using the educational ladder to improve themselves.

John Denham: The Government have a great deal of which to be proud in their educational record. We should not allow the Opposition to get away with their dismissive claims of, Yes, there's more money and far more teachers and exam results are better, but what did you ever do for schools? We have a good record of achievement and we need to build on it.
	We cannot yet claim that the Government have decisively broken the link between social class and educational performance. The row about that and how to achieve it is at the heart of the debate, and I am glad. When the White Paper was published, it was spun in many quarters as a measure that was solely for aspirational, middle-class parents. Through the work of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the debate has become about the group of pupils who have not benefited as much as others from what we have done so far. The analysis supports that interpretation of the debate, and that is good.
	The White Paper was controversial because it rested on two propositions about how to improve our schools: school autonomy and parental choice. I am not against either of thosethere are merits in bothbut the problem is that neither is sufficiently powerful to produce the improvements that we need throughout our school system. Both can produce good results in individual schools and improvements in individual areas. However, we need improvement across the board.
	Our actions so far in government have told us what makes a good school: strong leadership, well-supported staff, a balanced intake and parental support. Too many schools do not have all those elements, but autonomy and parental choice alone are not likely to deliver them. There is simply no evidence to show that the exercise of choice drives up standards. It is possible for choice, diversity and good schools to co-exist, as happens in Sweden. However, there is little evidence to show that parents choosing between different schools or schools competing for pupils drives up standards.
	There is evidence to show that choice increases social segregation. Some people respond to that by saying that we should stop choice. I must say to my colleagues who feel like that that it is a non-starter. Although many parents do not especially want to exercise choice, they undoubtedly wish to feel that they have a choice. It is a political dead end to believe that we can solve our school problems by removing choice from the equation.
	The challenge for us is to deliver a genuine choice of good schools. Choice itself does not ensure that schools are good. Successful schools will have a balanced intake. They are what we used to call comprehensives before that went out of fashion. The evidence suggests that comprehensives work. It is interesting that the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), when speaking about The Oratorya school of which I had not heard previouslytried to defend it on the basis that it sought a comprehensive intake.
	One of the most distinctive things that has happened with academies is that schools that used to have an entirely disadvantaged intake now have a balanced one, and the Government say that they produce better results. I wish that we had been more prepared to argue that schools with balanced intakes were more successful for more pupils than any other model of education, and then set about finding the best strategies to achieve balanced intakes. As I said, I do not believe that one can do that by removing choice and saying, You've got to go to that schoolend of story. That will not work. We must win the argument parent by parent and school by school throughout the country.
	In the Bill and the campaign since the White Paper was launched, we have made sufficient change to make the original market model, which some Conservative Members desperately want, pretty difficult to achieve. We have done enough so that in the areas where local authorities and others wish to do so, we can begin to devise local strategies for developing schools with balanced intakes. We will have information, monitoring and the admissions forums to take forward the campaign for a better sort of education. All of us, working together, have helped to achieve that in the past few months.

Michael Connarty: May I take my right hon. Friend back to his first comment about the worry that the White Paper would be a charter for the middle classes to take over independent trust schools? Nothing that he has said up to now has convinced me that that will not happen, and the local authorities will not have the power to prevent it.

John Denham: We have ensured in the Bill that local authorities will have the leading role in objecting to the kind of expansion of a school that would damage other schools. The Secretary of State has given us assurances that will provide some constraints, although not all the ones that I would have put in if I had been asked to write the Bill. However, I was not asked to write the Bill, so I am working with the one that we have got. We have made a lot of progress since the White Paper was published in ensuring that there are local strategies and local admissions forums that will be able to determine whether a development will be damaging to pupils in the wider area.
	Many of us fought for certain safeguards, not to prevent a popular school from expanding, but to enable us to say to a school, If you act like that, if you cheat like that, if you develop like that, or if you change in this way, it will damage the education of other children. The Bill is not perfect in regard to the safeguards that it contains, but it is a lot better than what we had when the White Paper was first published.

Clive Efford: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

John Denham: No, I must make some progress.
	When building on the Bill, we need to go beyond the idea of having a statutory admissions code. That is a building block for making the argument about a balanced intake. We then have to determine at local level how we should develop an approach that genuinely persuades parents that schools with a balanced intake are better for their children's education. There are elements in the Bill that will be important in enabling us to do that. I would almost throw the whole Bill away if I could keep the powers that will enable us to intervene quickly on schools that are beginning to fail, but have not yet been condemned by Ofsted. Too many children have suffered in schools that have drifted for two, three, four or five years before anything was done about them. The ability to get in there quickly is important.
	There is not a lot about personalised education in the Bill, although the flavour of the concept is there. It involves the ability to give a guarantee to parents that their child will not disappear into the morass of a school that offers a lowest-common-denominator education. That is a key part of the strategy to develop schools with a balanced intake. For that reason as well, I believe that there is enough in the Bill to illustrate that we have made progress since the publication of the White Paper and that we should support it.
	I wish, however, that the Bill had gone further. It is not enough to aspire to co-operation between schools. One of the big dividing lines between Labour Members, certainly on the Back Benches, and the Conservatives is that the Conservatives celebrate the independence and irresponsible autonomy of individual schools. We, however, believe that it is essential that schools collaborate across an area and take responsibility for the achievements of all children. I wish that the Bill had gone further in regard to the powers to require schools to form federations and to take responsibility for working together. I hope that, in the course of the Bill's passage through Parliament, we can diminish those deficiencies.

Robert Key: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the Leader of the Opposition, on recognising that this is a special Bill that deserves our support for all the right reasons, as well as some very good reasons that are more political. I also congratulate the Secretary of State and her Ministers on producing a Bill that has depth and vision and which deserves support right across the House.
	When I decided to become a teacher, the first class that I faced before I did my postgraduate certificate was in a secondary modern school. I was horrified at the poverty of aspiration in the people in that school, from the teachers and parents to the children. That experience motivated me strongly to believe that we had to do something about the problem. During the course of that year, I passed a term at Leeds grammar school, and a more traditional and excellent school one could not find anywhere in the 1960s.
	I am glad to say that, because my first full-time job in education was in Scotland, I am a Scottish-registered teacher. I recognised within about five minutes an enormous difference between the approach to education in Scotland and, in particular, the approach in England in the 1960s. During my 16-year education career, I also learned an enormous amountas a governor of schools in the old Inner London Education Authorityabout education at all levels and for those of all ages. I realised how privileged I had been in my own education; I also realised what I wanted for my children and for other people's children.
	When I look at the Bill, I recognise something a little bit special: it has vision. When I think back to Kenneth Baker's great Education Act 1988I sat for many hours on the Standing Committee of what was known as the GerbilI also recognise that that was a landmark education Bill, and I suspect that this will be one too.
	I regret that there is still such animosity towards grammar schools. We heard a moving speech from my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) on the subject.

Nia Griffith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Robert Key: I certainly will not give way at this stage.
	I also recognise, however, that in constituencies such as minewe have excellent grammar schools, which both my daughters attendedthere is not the animosity that there was 20 years ago. The grammar schools have changed, and all the other schools have changed. There is a mythology among Labour Members about hatred of grammar schools, which I think is wrong. I have a great admiration for the grammar school system throughout the country. Grammar schools make an enormous contribution and I hope that we shall see no diminution of support for them, although I do not believe that there will be any particular call for their re-establishment.
	I looked carefully at clause 36 in case it was doing something of which I was not aware. I certainly would not support the Bill if it was going to abolish grammar schools, but I do not think that it will. I do not think that it says much more than was said in legislation a little earlier.
	What I particularly like about the Bill is that it will do things for my rural constituency as well as other constituencies. I do not agree that it is a London-centric Bill, although I know that that worries many people. For instance, clause 7, entitled Invitation for proposals for establishment of new schools, is right on for the problem that we face in rural constituencies such as mine. Following the Government's building schools for the future initiative and the one-school pathfinder project, my local education authority was told, Here is 20 million: build us a new secondary school. There was then a frantic competition. The LEA had to choose one secondary school among dozens that needed rebuilding. Last week, my constituency lost outfor all the wrong reasons. It was not that we do not need new secondary schools; we need at least two rebuilt secondary schools, or completely new schools. Good luck to Melksham: it won and we lost. It should not be like that, however, and I think that the Bill will enable us to overcome such failures in the system.
	I am also delighted that school transport is being tackled in a more constructive way for the first time. I particularly like clause 11, Establishment of school as a federated school. We have huge problems in rural schools, especially primary schools. We simply cannot go on having little village schools with 40, 50 or 60 children when more than 50 per cent. of children are brought in, unsustainably, in 4X4s from the surrounding market towns because their parents happen to like a particular school with a particular head teacher at a particular time, and it is a brilliant school. I do not want us to experience the traumas that we experienced in the village of Farley last year, or those that we are experiencing in the village of Redlynch this year. I want to see an approach like that in the village of Broadchalke, where there is to be one big school that will look after the needs of a large number of villages in the Chalke valley west of Salisbury.
	Clauses 14 and 15 deal with the discontinuance of schools maintained by LEAs and with consultation. I am delighted at the recognition that the LEAs must consult the district council, the parish council and
	such persons as appear to them to be appropriate.
	That is constructive, although there are some omissions. There are issues that I should like to see tackled. I shall be told that that is not possible, but I do not think we are taking enough account of the needs of service schools. Thousands of the children of our service men and women are served very well by the service schools education authority. The Education Select Committee is not allowed to investigate service schools because they are a matter for the Ministry of Defence, and I am glad to say, as a member of the Defence Select Committee, that we are going to investigate service education. However, I would have been more comfortable with a joined-up government approach.
	I turn to a fundamental issue, to which a number of Members have referred: the crying need for education in science and technology from year one of our children's school careers. I shudder when I hear about any more involvement with creationismas if it can be taken seriously. We are told that this is only a comparative study and that it will never happen; nevertheless, I remain worried.

Jamie Reed: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Robert Key: Forgive me, but I will not give way; I want to keep absolutely to the time limit.
	I worry about the teaching of creationism and I am strong believer in the need for more science and technology education. One of the great strengths of the school system in my constituency, which has everything from grammar schools to large and thriving comprehensives, is that it recognises the education and careers needs of the local community and, above all, the value of education for its own sake in terms of the quality of life of our young people and the good of our country in the long run. I shall happily support this Bill tonight.

Michael Meacher: I listened with interest to the speeches from the Government and Opposition Front Benchers, and noted in particular the supportive tone of the latter and of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), who waxed eloquently about consensus. I should point out that I speak today more in a spirit of sorrow than of anger. Labour has, as many colleagues have said, a very good record on education. Huge extra resources have been pumped into improving buildings, classrooms and equipment, and into providing many more teachers, smaller classes and steadily rising educational standards. There are certainly aspects of the Bill that build on that foundation. For example, it contains a welcome emphasis on personalised learning, makes clear the Government's impatience with coasting and failing schools, and demands proper rules of discipline. It is also concerned with improved nutritional standards and the restoration of vocational education.
	All that is clearly excellent and should be supported, but the Bill's central thrust is based on a rather different philosophy: a competitive market model opened up to external sponsors and driven by parental choice. That model, which will give popular and successful schools their head as the engines of innovation and change in the locality, has clear and distinctive drawbacks and disadvantages that have been widely publicised ever since the far-reaching nature of these proposals was first divulged in the White Paper. It was not divulged beforehand, and certainly not in Labour's election manifesto.
	However, it is fair to say that since objections to that model were extensively voiced in the Labour party and outside it, the Government have engaged in discussions to try to deal with some of them. In my view, they have done so. On admissions, they have now agreed to a ban on selection not only by ability but by interviews, which is clearly important. Schools will now be required to act in accordance with the admissions code, and not merely to have regard to it; however, we have not seen the content of the code to which they are obliged to have regard.
	The sheer length of the last admissions codeat the time of its withdrawal it was more than 70 pages longillustrates some of the difficulties involved in trying to close all the loopholes that undermine a fair and balanced admissions policy within an open market system. In such a system, will the admissions forums be sufficiently robust and effective to counter pressure from high-performing schools against including a fair share of children from poorer and more difficult backgrounds? I, for one, have my doubts about that.
	On expansion, the White Paper envisaged popular schools being free to expand with little or no regulation, and with few if any limits on their size. It is now proposed that local authorities should be responsible for lifting standards in weak or failing schoolswhich is much betterand that they can take consideration, as they should, of the overall educational performance of all schools in the area. However, in an open-market system, it is all too likely that the capacity of local authorities to do so effectively will be undermined unless we write into the Bill criteria such as no damage to surrounding schools and no impairment of the local authority's efficient use of resources. At the moment, the Bill does not include such criteria. When local authority intervention fails, a school that has been made unviable can be closed and replaced, but only at the expense of struggling with increasingly inadequate education over several years. I, for one, regard that as too high a price, both for teachers and for children.
	On governance, the founding of independent trust schools would represent an irreversible transfer of public assets to external sponsors, be they businesses, charities or faith groups, for which there would be little or no public accountability whatever policies they might pursue. The important point has been made that if there was evidence that coasting or failing schools, which are a major concern, would routinely and reliably be transformed by taking on trust status and, crucially, that the overall educational performance of all the schools in the surrounding area would also be lifted, the case for the change would be strong. However, there is no such evidence. The Education and Skills Committee, in a very good report, considered all the evidence and concluded:
	No causal link has been demonstrated between external partners and the success of a school.
	The example of charter schools in the US seems to underlie many of the proposals in the White Paper and the Bill, but they have been shown to fail especially poorer and more vulnerable families.
	The problem is not that the Government have not listened. They have listened, but the amendments have been relatively marginal and the core proposals in the Bill remain untouched. I expect that all hon. Members want a fair, equitable and accountable education system that will drive up standards across the range of provision in all schools, but the reform model in the Bill is the wrong one to achieve that. As has been saidand it is relevant because the OECD evidence is widespreadFinland and other Scandinavian countries have the highest literacy and education standards in the world. Finland has a fully comprehensive system, based entirely on community schools. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) pointed to differences between this country and Finland, but that does not undermine the force of my point.
	We need a wholly different model, not one that tinkers with structures and private marketsand then has to be tinkered with again to ameliorate some of the worst effectsbut a modernised public services model, with a relentless focus on high quality school leadership; the recruitment and professional development of highly qualified, highly valued and well paid teachers; high expectations of all pupils; close monitoring of each pupil's progress with smaller classes, more effective communication between parents and schools; and a targeting of resources and time on pupils from the most challenging home backgrounds. With great sorrow, I have to say that I cannot support the Bill as it stands.

Graham Brady: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), I think that the Bill is, on balance, a good thing. It is a small step in the right direction. I have several reservations about it, but in some ways the saddest aspect of the Bill is the extent to which it now falls short of what was promised in the White Paper. In particular, having seen how charter schools in some of the most deprived areas of the US work incredibly well, I was excited to read what the Prime Minister wrote in his foreword to the White Paper. He pointed to the successes of charter schools, and to the success of school choice in Florida, so I was sorry to find that the Bill did not contain any of that radical edge. I hope that we will try to restore it as the Bill goes through the House.

John Hayes: We will.

Graham Brady: I am delighted that my hon. Friend on the Front Bench confirms that we will try to do so.
	The other matter about which I want to speak is academic selection. Sadly, the Bill is even more timid in its approach to that than it is about school choice. Selection is a facet of education policy and debate that is more bogged down with outdated ideological baggage than any other. In raising educational standards, we should not let ideology determine policy. What matters is what works, and I want to talk about what works.
	In his excellent foreword to the White Paper, the Prime Minister made no criticism of grammar schools, but correctly identified low-achieving secondary moderns as the cause of the pressure that led to the spread of comprehensive education in many areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) made the same point.
	I shall quote briefly from a book written in 1998 by Stephen Pollard and someone called Andrew Adonis. It stated:
	In 1965, the Labour-controlled House of Commons resolved that moving to a comprehensive system would preserve all that is valuable in grammar school education . . . and make it available to more children. Few would maintain that this has in fact been the case.
	Later in the book, the authors state:
	The comprehensive revolution tragically destroyed much of the excellent without improving the rest. Comprehensive schools have largely replaced selection by ability with selection by class and house price. Middle class children now go to middle class comprehensives. Far from bringing classes together, England's schoolsprivate and stateare now a force for rigorous segregation.
	Such thinking has clearly informed the White Paper, and I welcome it very much, although it is sadly lacking from the Bill.

Jamie Reed: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he is opposed to selection by ability?

Graham Brady: I am sorry, I did not catch that.

Jamie Reed: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House what his position is on selection by ability?

Graham Brady: I propose to do that at the length that I am allowed by the time limit on speeches. The hon. Gentleman will not be disappointed.
	Some areas, such as my own borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, took another route in respect of education at that time. Instead of scrapping our excellent grammar schools, we set about raising the standard of our secondary moderns. That is a model that hon. Members with open minds who genuinely care about educational outcomes will want to take seriously, as the system in Trafford works better than any comprehensive system in England.
	Here are the facts. Last year, 70.2 per cent. of children in Trafford gained five or more A* to C grades at GCSE. That compares with 51 per cent. in Bolton, which is represented by the Secretary of State, or 56 per cent. in Worcestershire, where the constituency of the Minister for Schools is situated. In Buryand I see that the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) is in the Chamberwhere the social profile is broadly similar, the figure is 58 per cent. In Trafford, a wholly selective area, more than 70 per cent. of children get five or more good GCSEs. That compares with 60 per cent. in leafier Cheshire next door, 54 per cent. in Oxfordshire, 61 per cent. in Hampshire, and 56 per cent. in West Sussex.

Barbara Keeley: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and he will know that I was responsible for education in Trafford from 2000 until 2004. The statistics that he has read out are very impressive, but I have to tell him that we encountered many difficulties. We had problems with admissions, as some schools were oversubscribed and it was very difficult to get looked-after children or those with special needs into them. That was one of the most difficult jobs in the country. Moreover, in the period when I was responsible for education in Trafford, there was always one school that was failing or subject to special measures. The hon. Gentleman must be careful when he quotes those statistics, as there is a danger that they are partial and do not take account of the problems that the Trafford system caused.

Graham Brady: The hon. Lady is absolutely right; there are problems and difficulties with any system of education. The point is that, in Trafford, we managed to overcome those problems and get the best results in the country. The hon. Lady should be pleased about that.
	The rigour and transparency of selection helped to ensure high standards of primary education long before the publication of performance data. Equally striking is the extent to which these high standards are maintained throughout a pupil's school career. Richmond-upon-Thames tops the league table for primary schools; Trafford is second. Yet at GCSE level, Richmond slides down the rankings to 69th place, with only 55 per cent of children getting five good GCSEs. Trafford maintains the momentum; we continue to top the table at GCSE and at A-level.
	None of this, of course, is new. We heard an excellent speech earlier about the Northern Ireland selective system, which gets the best results in the whole of the United Kingdom. Last year, even the DFES admitted that
	between the ages of 11 and 15, pupils in wholly selective local education authorities make more progress than pupils in partially selective or non-selective authorities and that extra progress equates to pupils in wholly selective LEAs achieving approximately two grades higher in one GCSE than in non-selective LEAs.
	The fact is that selective LEAs do better for all children across the board. If seven out of ten children in Trafford can get five good GCSEs, why not in Oxfordshire, where only half of children reach that level? If seven out of ten children in Redbridge, with selection, can get five decent GCSEs, why not in Hampshire, Westminster or Manchesteror why not in Bristol, where only half as many children get five good GCSEs as those living in Trafford or in Redbridge?
	We all know that the same few LEAs dominate the top of the table for GCSE achievement: Trafford, Redbridge, Sutton, Buckinghamshire and Kingston upon Thames, all of which are selective. The case for selection has been made as eloquently by the Government's own value-added tables as by anything else. The value-added tables had been expected to knock the grammar schools off their perch. But between the ages of 11 and 14, of the 21 schools adding most value, 18 were grammar schools and the other three were independent. If value-added tables were a wheeze to show the effectiveness of comprehensives, it did not work.
	Of course some comprehensives do work wellusually ones where pupils are taught in classes set by ability, because pupils learn better when they are engaged at the right level of ability. That is the way grammar schools operate; if grouping pupils according to ability within schools is effective and desirable, it should be acceptable also to group pupils according to ability between schools. What matters is what works. Perhaps that is why today's ICM poll shows that 70 per cent. of the public would like more grammar schools, while only 21 per cent. oppose them.
	Trafford's outstanding results are achieved not just because of the grammar schools, but because of the quality of the high schools that stand in the place of the failed secondary moderns of the 1960sproud, high achieving schools with a rich pattern of specialisms, from sport to technology. We can judge the effectiveness of the high schools by the results that they produce. Do not forget: the most academically inclined children have gone elsewhere.
	The national average for children achieving five good GCSEs in 2005 was 57 per cent. Ashton on Mersey high school in my constituency, also a specialist sports college, easily beat the national average: 62 per cent. of pupils got five good GCSEs. Down the road at Wellington, 73 per cent.16 percentage points above the national average for children of all abilitiesgot five good GCSEs. Children at Trafford's high schools are receiving a better education and getting better results than at most comprehensives.
	Indeed, if you exclude the performance of Trafford's grammar schools, with roughly the top 40 per cent. of the ability range, the high schools on their own would come 65th out of 148 LEAs in England, ahead of Richmond-upon-Thames and many others. Trafford is perhaps the perfect example of the successful, diverse state education system that the Prime Minister and Lord Adonis so rightly want to achievea system that, in the words of the White Paper, takes full account of
	how different young people acquire knowledge and skills.
	All of us here today want higher standards in schools. I am not claiming that what we do in Trafford can work everywhere, and I certainly would not seek to impose it on other parts of the country. But I am asking all hon. Members to look at the facts that I have put before the House. If they do so with an open mind, they will find it impossible to rule out the use of selection as a part of the modern, diverse provision of schools that our children need.

David Chaytor: We have moved on a long way from the rhetoric of the White Paper six months ago. Some of the White Paper's language could have been lifted directly from the speeches of Sir Keith Joseph in about 1981, shortly before he made his terrible speech in Preston and argued that all women in social classes D and E should be sterilised, as the solution to the problems of the welfare state. Nevertheless, we have moved on since that early rhetoric. I commend the Secretary of State and her ministerial team for the way that they have listened to the criticisms from a wide range of sources to try to convert the White Paper into a Bill that is practical and workable.
	Perhaps the key moment during the past six months, when we saw that we were moving in the right direction, was when the Secretary of State came to the Select Committee on Education and Skills and made the very simple and straightforward point that, regardless of the rhetoric about trust schools and the brave new world promised in the White Paper, in reality a trust school would be no different from the existing category of foundation schools that already have their own foundations.
	In fact, trust schools will be simply a subset of foundation schools. Given that we have recently legislated to allow schools to become foundation schools far more easilya process that can be achieved in four weeks following the simple vote of the governing bodywhy on earth do we need a new Bill to launch trust schools?
	I shall support the Bill this evening. It has many merits, some of which were spelt out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher): the emphasis on curriculum reform, particularly at key stage 4, and on the personalisation of the curriculum and the measures on school discipline. However, there are controversial issues about the governance of schools, the role of local authorities and the admissions policies.
	Although we had genuine concerns about those issues six months ago, the Government have responded to them. Local authorities will be able to run new community schools, subject to the veto, and it is extremely important that the criteria by which that veto will be exercised are spelt out in the Bill. There are also concerns about the eligible bodies that could become involved in the new trust schools, and it is important that there are measures in the Bill to determine what external partners can become involved. The key criterion is that an external partner should be a charity or a corporate body that already has a good track record in delivering education, not someone who just happens to have a couple of million pounds to spend and wants to inflate his ego.
	As the corollary of the tightened admissions procedures already included, it is important that the code of practice appears in the Bill, albeit not necessarily in full. I am not convinced about whether such a long document could be included as a schedule to the Bill. Although it already has 18 schedules, I should have thought that a 19th schedule with the full text of the code of practice would not be unreasonable. The Bill should certainly state the key admissions criteria that are deemed acceptable and those that are not. Of course, the precedent has been established for inserting some criteria in the Bill, such as in the clauses that relate to banding and interviewing.

Tim Farron: Does the hon. Gentleman share my disappointment that the Government have not yet given way to the suggestion in the Select Committee report that a move towards the anonymisation of the admissions procedure could guarantee that it would not be used for selection through the backdoor?

David Chaytor: That was the hon. Gentleman's contribution to the Select Committee report, and it was an important one. I agree that the issue has not been properly debated and that it needs to have a wider debate. It is an excellent way forward, but we are not yet at the stage where the Government will adopt the suggestion. However, these ideas must be pursued.
	Those who feel the need to vote against the Bill have to decide what the educational reasons for doing so are. The process that we have gone through over the past six months involved the Government publishing their White Paper, with some of its critics publishing alternative proposals. The Government listened carefully, took on board many of the proposals and made assurances and promises that other issues would be considered in Committee. Once one has made one's contribution to the debate and the Government have listened and taken on board much of what one has said, one cannot then suddenly shift ground and say that there are other reasons for not voting for the Bill.
	I know that some people will say that the Bill opens the doors to a market in state education. Where have they been since the Education Act 1980? Since open enrolment was introducedit was the first Act of the Thatcher Governmentwe have been steadily moving towards a more market-based system. To those who are concerned about more private sector revenue or capital coming into the state system, I say that it is very difficult for a Member of Parliament cheerfully to issue a press release welcoming the close links between the schools and local businesses in his or her constituency, welcoming the designation of specialist status for schools in their constituency with the 50,000 that comes from the private sector and welcoming the launch of an academy in the constituency with the 2 million that comes from the private sector and then suddenly say, No, we cannot have trust schools because that will lead to more private sector involvement.

Michael Connarty: Will my hon. Friend give way?

David Chaytor: I have given way once and I do not accrue another minute if I give way again. I must carry on.
	We need to explore in more detailI hope that we will do so in Committeesome of the concepts that seem to go unchallenged. I pick out the issues of diversity, choice and independence as three of the most important concepts that go unchallenged. I am quite relaxed about schools being slightly different; I am not really bothered what the name on the front door of the school says. I recognise that there is a public demand for a wider range of products and services in all spheres of our public life, but what matters at the end of the day is not the name of the school. In fact, I am not sure that what matters is the school's ethos, because I get slightly nervous about the term ethos. It really is a euphemism for selecting those who are similar to us. However, I am bothered about diversity within the school. If the Government are going to fulfil our absolute commitment to raising standards of education and achieving the potential of all children, we have to recognise the differences among all children, and we have to be able to provide diversity of curriculum and diversity of pastoral care arrangements within each school.
	Some people take it as read that choice is a good thing. I do not think that we can have a system of totally free choice without paying attention to the practical consequences of implementing that. In any system of education, health care or of any other aspect of the welfare state, choice has to operate within a series of constraints. The key issue for Government is to decide what constraints there are going to be and in whose interests they operate. There could and should be such a thing as managed choice that works in the greatest interest of the greatest number rather than a naive view of totally free choice, which will inevitably advantage those who are most confident and articulate.
	I am fairly relaxed, and have been for 20 years, about the commissioner-provider split. I am fairly relaxed about more innovation in the system, but if the system is going to be freed up, two things are of paramount importance. First, we need to have the powers for local authorities to manage at the strategic level and to co-ordinate in the interests of all children. Secondly, we have to have a tight admissions policy that works in the interests of all children. If we do not have a set of rules

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has had his time.

Tim Farron: Throughout the Select Committee's work, it was clear that the education professionals who appeared before the Committee were in a mood to have reform; they were pro-reform, rather than anti-reform. The Liberal Democrats are not anti-reform either, despite some of the things that have been said during the debate. However, the Select Committee found that the reform that the professionals sought related to improving standards, enhancing quality and ensuring fair access for all. That is why it is a source of great sadness to me that, although there is much in the Bill to be welcomed, it is flawed by its concentration on structural change, as has been said. Much of that appears to be unnecessary and some of it is downright unhelpful and perhaps counter-productive, at least if we assume that the Government want to improve fair access to the best quality of education for all, as I believe they do.
	Much attention is paid to the language of diversity and choice. Diversity and choice are good wordsthey are hooray words. Who is going to be opposed to such things? Not the former chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, who has been on the airwaves this week, acting as Government apologist for the Bill and saying that diversity of provision is a precursor to increasing standards[Interruption.] Hon. Members may have heard him. Of course, he presented no evidence for the claim, but he explained that the Bill was a welcome step towards marketising education. He did not give any explanation of why the marketising of education was to be welcomed. Given the problems that we are experiencing in the NHS, specifically with regard to dentistry, we can see the consequences of dogmatic and inappropriate marketisation. One would have thought that such language would be seen as reactionary and backward thinkinghardly the stuff of a legacy-setting reform agenda.
	A successful school system provides the best opportunities for all its young people and ensures that every child meets their potential, irrespective of their background. On that basis, substantial parts of the Bill fail the test because they make it less likely that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds will succeed. Allowing independent admissions under current arrangements will undoubtedly lead to children from poorer families being left further behind. We have already heard about the Sutton Trust's paper, which states:
	Schools which are responsible for their own admissions take a low proportion of pupils on free school meals, which is an indicator of a school's overall social mix.
	The Institute of Education, in its report in January, stated:
	There is clearer evidence that own-admissions authority schools are associated with greater levels of social segregation.
	Furthermore, Baroness Warnock, in her evidence to the Select Committee last autumn, stated that greater independence over admissions inevitably led to children with special educational needs receiving a poorer deal.
	As the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) and I mentioned earlier, the Selection Committee raised the point that that anonymisation of the admissions procedure could have given the Government a way out of the accusation that independent admissions procedures are selection by the back door.

Meg Hillier: The hon. Gentleman talks about the admissions code as though there have been no changes since the White Paper. Perhaps the Liberal Democrats have got that a bit confused. There is currently a postcode lottery in many areas. As people move to live nearer schools of their choice, the reality is that we have postcode performance in many areas. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Bill will go some way towards addressing that inequity?

Tim Farron: I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I acknowledge that there have been changes to the admissions code. That was the work of the Select Committee. I signed up to the report, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams), but we do not think that it goes far enough. We believe that one of the ways to ensure that we do not get discreet and sometimes unseen selection through the back door would be to remove the possibility of seen admissions, which would lead to that. I will deal with her other point later.
	There are some positives in the Bill and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) pointed them out. We welcome attempts to strengthen discipline in schools and to tackle underachievement, poor behaviour and truancy, which makes it all the more disappointing that the Government have again passed up the opportunity to make a real difference in this area. I wonder whether it has occurred to the Secretary of State that young people who are succeeding at school rarely play truant. Those who are achieving their potential, or on the way to doing so, rarely play truant. Almost exclusively it is the case that young people who play truant, who go on to get into trouble and whose contribution to society may end up being limited are those who do not succeed at school.
	Why is the Government's focus on a mirage of choice between schools when it should be on the desperate need for real choice in curriculum? Why have the Government again, as has been mentioned this afternoon, ducked the challenge of taking on the Tomlinson report, which would provide young people with a spectrum of choices from which they could take a blend of traditional academic courses alongside professional and vocational ones, in a format that does not pander to academic snobbery and therefore reinforce social segregation and failure at school? The Government could truly make progress with their respect agenda, and win the respect of parents and teachers, if they only had the inclination to provide options at school that ensure that young people are enabled to succeed at what they are good at and reach their potential, rather than being relegated as failures.
	This Bill has been characterised as one for urban Britain, more specifically for London. Nowhere is that characterisation more appropriate than in the language about choice that is being used to sell the Bill. Choice in education is important, but choice between different schools is a laughable nonsense to those of us living in rural communities. John Ruskin school in Coniston in my constituency is an excellent high school, and it is good that it is because the second choice school, or the second nearest, is a 10-mile drive along country lanes and two ferry rides away. The Government should not be surprised that so many teachers and parents in my constituency and others like it stand perplexed in response to the Government's celebration of choices that simply do not exist.
	Even for those less rural parts of my constituency where it is physically possible to get to more than one school without resorting to ferries, choice will in essence be meaningless. The Select Committee discovered that the Government have no serious practical plans to expand the most popular schools, so once they are full, they are full. Given that most of the most popular schools are by definition already full, even in this respect choice between institutions is a mirage.
	Perhaps, however, despite all the watering down of the Bill, the reality is not that important to the Government. Perhaps what matters are the messages. Perhaps the message of the controversial part of the Bill is intended to be a dog whistle to those who consider themselves aspirational and ambitious for their children. That includes me, by the way, so I am listening. The message is, Whatever we say, this will lead to the opportunity for your child to do better, to take advantage of your aspirations and those of your aspirational school. It's a desperate shame, of course, for the other dozen schools in your city or town that are non-aspirational and also that the parents of the kids there aren't as aspirational as you, but that's not your fault and it can't be helped.
	The Conservatives like that sort of thing, and I would like to think that that is why they are preparing to back the Bill, but it is nothing as sophisticated or intelligent as that. This is low politics. The Conservatives will back the Prime Minister simply to embarrass him, but they could back us and defeat him, and at the same time protect our children from a dangerous slide back to opportunities for a few at the expense of the many.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. As a significant number of Members are still seeking to catch my eye in this debate, in accordance with the Order of the House of 26 October 2004 on shorter speeches, the Deputy Speaker has decided that between half-past Five o'clock and half-past Six o'clock a time limit of three minutes will apply. Obviously, whether or not Members take interventions is entirely a matter for them, but no time will be added if they do. I call Helen Jones.

Helen Jones: There is much in this Bill that is sensible and well thought out and builds on the Government's excellent progress in education. But I deeply regret that I cannot support the Government's proposals for trust schools because I believe them to be wrong in principle and flawed in practice. Moreover, I believe that far from improving education for the most disadvantaged children, they will in fact disadvantage them further.
	There are two things that we try to do in education. One is to pass on the skills that we need to the next generation, but the other is to transmit values to them. One cannot contract out that processit is one of the basic responsibilities of civil society. Yet that is what we propose to do here. We propose to allow foundations, businesses and charitable organisations not simply to be partners in schools but to own and control them.
	The proposal stems from two propositionsfirst, the belief that the current system has failed and, secondly, the belief that the measure will fix it. It is difficult for the Government to argue the first proposition when they keep announcing educational successes. They are right to do so, because the latest Ofsted report makes it clear that the proportion of good or excellent teaching has increased enormously since 1997. The number of schools causing concern or in special measures has fallen, and results have improved. The Opposition hate that fact, as they would rather that kids did not achieve many good results, but the numbers attaining five good GCSEs and better A-levels, as well as the proportion of children staying on at school, are increasing all the time.
	It is therefore difficult to argue the first proposition. There are still problems in the education system that need to be reformed, and I hope to come on to that later. The question is whether the measure offers the right reformwill it fix the problem? Quite simply, there is zero evidence that people who have made a great deal of money are good at running schools. When the Select Committee examined the White Paper that preceded the Bill it said:
	No causal link has been demonstrated between external partners and the success of a school, or the independence of a school from local authority control and its success.
	The Government have cited the example of specialist schools and academies. Our predecessor Committee said in 2003 that research on specialist schools could not separate the effect of an external partner from the large injection of cash that such schools receive. The data on academies are such that the case for them is still unproven. Most academies accept a smaller proportion of deprived children than their predecessor schools, but while some have improved results, others have stalled and some have produced worse results.
	We are therefore being asked to make a leap of faith. In a form of educational creationism we are asked to proclaim All the evidence is against it, but I believe it anyway. Doing so, however, would result in the creation of a system that is unfair, does not meet parents' aspirations, and fails to address many of the problems that remain. Despite the work that the Government have done on admissionsI acknowledge that work and give them full credit for itthe key question is who monitors admissions procedure. The Select Committee recommended that it should be local authorities working with school admissions forums that set benchmarks and produce annual reports. The whole process would be accompanied by an annual report to the House. Admissions forums, which are largely ad hoc bodies, are not capable of doing that by themselves, and they cannot administer an extremely complex system used by different admissions authorities.
	It is assumed that diversity in itself promotes choice, but the evidence does not stack up. Diversity and choice are two different things. In the London borough of Barnet, which has a large number of different schools and admissions authorities, 52 per cent. secure their first-choice school. In my local authority, the figure is 97 per cent. In other parts of the north-west, it is 99 per cent. The evidence for that assumption is simply not there. A great deal of evidence was given to the Select Committee showing that a wide variety of schools increases social segregation and clusters the poorest children in a small number of schools. I am worried about that, and I fear, too, the people who are waiting in the wings to take advantage of the proposal. Make no mistakecreationists and fundamentalists of all colours and creeds are waiting to use the proposal to take over schools. At a time when we ought to bring our young people together and allow them to learn to live together, I fear that we will push them further apart, which would be disastrous for this country.
	There are contradictions in what is proposed. A Government who want to restore community cohesion want to move away from community schools. A Government whose whole agenda for 14 to 19 education, extended schools and even the youth service depends on co-operation between institutions have not accepted the recommendation of the Select Committee to put in the Bill a duty of co-operation between trust schools.
	There is much that we need to do to reform education. We must get our best teachers into the most challenging schools. We must find out why some schools in very difficult circumstances produce excellent results and others do not. We need to manage the transition from primary to secondary school and make the personalised learning agenda a reality through proper training. The Bill is not the right reform to achieve that. It is not a reform for this century, but a return to the notion of philanthropism that applied in the 19th century. When my hon. Friends look at charities, I hope that they will remember that famous Labour sayingyes, it is an old Labour saying, and I am proud of itthat private charity is no substitute for organised justice.

Andrew Turner: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones), with whom I shared membership of the Select Committee in the previous Parliament, and with whom I had many disagreements then and no fewer today. She says there is no evidence of benefit, but that does not mean that there is evidence of disbenefit. She speaks about the percentage of parents in her constituency who are fortunate enough to get the school of their choice compared with those in Barnet, but there is not much choice in some constituencies. I cannot speak for hers. There is a big choice in Barnet, so it is not surprising that so many are disappointed when there is a wide range of choice available.
	What we want, as I pointed out to the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), is not that 100 pupils should get the school of their choice and that 365 should be rejected, but that 465 pupils should get the school of their choice. In other words, we need more good schools. When he was sent down from Oxford, the hero of Decline and Fall was told when seeking a teaching job that there are leading schools, good schools and schools, and that schools are pretty awful. That, sadly, is the case for many parents, aspiring or otherwise, and pupils, capable or otherwise, not only in our inner cities, but in other parts of the country.
	The only thing that makes me feel ashamed about representing the Isle of Wight is that we inherited a poor system of schooling, where no choice is available at high school level. My Conservative-controlled council inherited that from the Liberal Democrats, who had controlled the council for 20 years. There is no choice and no competition among high schools.
	I have two points to make about the Bill. First, I am concerned that charities will not take part in the trust schools enterprise if they are over-regulated. There are regulation-making powers in clauses 7, 8, 12, 17, 19, 22, 24 and 25. If Ministers do not display a light touchI suspect they may want to treat the regulation-making power with a light touch, although I am not sure that their hon. Friends on the Back Benches want to see such a light touchthe Bill will not achieve the objectives that Ministers seek.
	The second point relates to school transport. I hope that the defence will be removed from section 444 of the Education Act 1996, which permits parents whose children are excluded from school transport because of misbehaviour to allow them to truant from school. There should be no obligation, as my youth council says, on those who misbehave to be carried to school at public expense.

Liz Blackman: I would probably have joined all my colleagues at the last election in proudly campaigning at every school gate that I could get at to hail the progress made in my local schools. The investment has gone in, and many of the reforms that needed to be made have been made. However, if we think that we have reached a point where we can relax, we are kidding ourselves. I say to my hon. Friends and to the Opposition that if they have any doubt about where we are and the road that we still need to travel, they should go to the Department for Education and Skills website, click on school performance tables and have a look, first at every school in their local area and its performancethe website allows that to be done very easily and shows a five-year periodand then have a little roam around the country. Members will see that there is a story to be told that is even more shocking than the 40 per cent. headroom that we still have to make as an average. There are schools that are bumping along, barely getting to 30 per cent, and they have done that for years. Derbyshire is a three-star authority and has done very well in supporting many of the schools in my constituency. Ten out of the 12 poorest schools fit into that category. If one looks more closely, there are schools that are achieving higher than that, but they are coasting. They are still going nowhere. One will also see some schools that are doing phenomenally well, reaching high levels of attainment and making that change very rapidly.
	The Bill is based on what we know works. We may not have all the evidence, but we have a lot of evidence about what works. We know that good leadership, good discipline, individualised learning packages, specialisms, partnerships, federations, high-performing local education authorities, sound governance and engaged communities work. The central part of the Bill, the most powerful change agent, is the role that we are giving to local education authorities to get in early, make the diagnosis, broker the changes that are needed to shift those schools that are failing so many of our children and to make the difference. The Bill is not just about children in poorly achieving schools and poor areas. It is also about high achieving children who are not being stretched. I say, look at the website.

Mark Hoban: I welcome the Bill. It is symbolic of the change in this Government's attitude to education. By freeing the provision of education, putting more emphasis on parental choice and giving schools the opportunity for greater freedoms, it marks a comprehensive departure from Labour's past. It is a recognition by the Government that to make the next step change in improving standards, we need to free the education system in this country. We need to harness the accountability that increased parental choice and increased diversity of provision can bring to the education system.
	For far too long we have relied on centralised control and direction to raise standards in our schools. The measures in the Bill will lay the foundations for a change in emphasis in our education system. The Bill will introduce more choice and more diversity. That will benefit parents and pupils, not just in leafy suburbs, but in urban areas and cities as well. For too long we have allowed education in our inner city areas to be neglected. Too often, education has not been seen as a route out of deprivation and social problems.
	I am concerned that the Government have already made too many concessions since the White Paper and the vision that the Prime Minister set out in its foreword. The concession that the Secretary of State made to allow LEAs to set up new community schools will be used by the weakest local authorities to hide their performance. Local authorities that are strong, confident and proud of the schools in their area will have no fear of new providers. The hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) pointed out from his experience of a visit to Sweden that competition from new providers can raise standards, improve diversity in the system and lead to better results, not just in the new schools but also in the schools already in the area. We need to learn that important lesson from experience in Sweden.
	We also need to say to those people who do not believe that autonomy and freedom can contribute to an improvement in standards that they should look at the value added tables for schools published earlier this year. What type of school was at the top of those tables in raising attainment beyond the expectation of children at the end of key stage 2? The answer is city technology collegesthe Conservative forerunners of academies. Schools with the least freedomcommunity schoolsactually experienced a reduction in standards at key stage 4 compared to their results at key stage 2.
	It is vital that the Government hold firm to the reforms and recognise that parental choice, diversity and freedom lead to higher educational standards. That was the basis on which I fought the last general election. I am pleased that the Government were thinking what we were thinking, and I am delighted to be able to support the Bill.

Colin Burgon: The Government have a good story to tell about their education programme; about investment, which has never been matched by any other Government, the new building programmes, the record number of teachers and teaching assistants and rising standards across the board. But if we are honest, there is one thing we have not delivered: a rise in standards in areas of social deprivation. The question we face is how to address that issue.
	The areas of greatest deprivation can easily be identified. We should be building schools there for the pupils who live there. A pay structure for head teachers and classroom teachers should reflect the difficult and different nature of the job in those areas. We should have something that our public school comrades have always hadclass sizes of about 1:12. If it is good enough for them, it must be good enough for us. The important point is that those changes should be carried out in the community itself, rather than bussing kids to other schools. Two communities suffer from that; bussing children out of one area deprives it of a school, while school sizes balloon in the other.
	The Bill is primarily about governance. I was a teacher for 17 fairly tumultuous years; it was a tough school, not a finishing school for the sons and daughters of gentlemen, and I rarely, if ever, thought about the nature of its governance or about its relationship with the local authority. We have to understand that the key determinant of education is not governance but the ability and class of the kids walking through the school gate and the ability of teachers to engage with them in education.
	I shall be voting against the Bill because it is about the primacy of the private over the public; it is about marketisation, competition and fragmentation. We have heard much about the direction of travel. I urge my hon. Friends to recall what the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) said, because he brilliantly spelled out the direction of travel. It will be a disastrous direction both for education and for us as a Labour Government.

Robert Wilson: My Front-Bench colleagues believe that the Bill is timidit certainly would be for a Conservative Government, but it is as radical as we will get from a Labour Government. Indeed, when the legislation is passed into the right hands it could be every bit as radical as the Prime Minister originally intended. It will certainly mean an end to the pretence that we have a comprehensive education system and it will mean a significant decline in the power of local education authorities.
	I understand why some Labour Members are concerned about the direction of travel of the legislation. It will not be everybody's cup of tea. The quality of education has become so poor in many areas, with thousands of schools failing, that the middle classes are gradually withdrawing from the public sector, especially in the cities. As one Downing street adviser put it,
	we have to persuade the critical mass of people to switch from the private to the public sector.
	Otherwise, he argued, they would demand tax cuts rather than supporting public sector investment.
	The Conservative party has already been down the independent road. We tried to use grant-maintained schools to raise standards and choice in education, in an attempt to break away from the dead hand of LEAs. Grant-maintained schools made a small but important contribution. Their impact could have been more significant, but unfortunately there was not a broad political consensus on the issue at that time. This time, we have a wider political consensus on trust schools and extra freedoms, so, if we can get the Bill through Parliament largely unaltered, one roadblock has been removed.
	The Bill provides an excellent foundation on which a Conservative Government can and should build. A number of specialist schools are currently permitted to select 10 per cent. of pupils on aptitude, which is to be applauded, by why only 10 per cent. and why include only certain specialisms such as PE and information technology? If the principle is sound, why not extend the practice to a wider range of specialisms and increase the percentages?
	I have not had time to say everything that I wantthis is the abridged version of my speechbut the Bill is a great platform on which the Conservative party can build further educational reforms. A party that has dismantled the comprehensive education system can hardly complain when we kick dust on that system's grave.

Mark Todd: I want to explore two issuesthe value of independence in dealing with poor performance and choice. Information is available on demonstrable demand for independence. An experiment took place in the 1990s, when grant-maintained status was offered with significant financial inducements. We are not repeating that experiment this time, and one must therefore assume that that offer was unattractive to many schools.
	In the 1990s, roughly 3 per cent. of primaries and 25 per cent. of secondaries went down the grant-maintained route, and almost all those schools are now foundation schools. In the past seven years, about 20 schools have converted to foundation status, so the offer has been there, but it has not been taken. In August last year, greater freedom was given to apply for foundation status, but I believe that the Department for Education and Skills is currently considering only a further six applications, which does not suggest that people are battering at the gate.
	Why are Labour Members so concerned about the value of independence? The evidence on outcomes is far from clear. The performance of foundation schools at the primary level compared with Ofsted outcomes for failing schools that are in special measures or that have been warned about the need to improve indicates that the performance of foundation schools and community schools is identical. The Government's model suggests that community or foundation status makes no difference to avoiding such sanctions, but there is evidence that there may be a gain at secondary level.
	I will support the Bill tonight. As hon. Members who have listened to me know, I generally endorse the involvement of the private and voluntary sectors in the provision of state services. I therefore sympathise with some of the principles behind the Bill, but I am concerned about some of the practical thinking. Given what I have seen, small primaries need to be protected from some of the risks of going down that pathin my constituency, one primary reverted to community status after an appalling experience dealing with the freedoms that some hon. Members have commended.
	On choice, there is no way round the fact that if one grants greater choice, one needs extra resources to pay for extra capacity, and I have heard no assurance to date that that will be offered.

John Bercow: I welcome the Bill, which will improve the quality of education, and I want briefly to focus on three issues. First, the introduction of specialist diplomas is radical, innovative and welcome. The Government deserve congratulation on taking forward the 14-to-19 agenda, but I have two concernstiming and funding. I understand that the Government intend to introduce no fewer than five of those diplomas by 2008, 10 by 2009 and the full 14 by 2010, which is an ambitious time scale. I simply say to the Minister, in the most positive and courteous spirit, that in view of the need for extensive training for new personnel and for people with workplace experience to translate the aspiration of the vocational specialisms into effective practice, I hope that people will not have their expectations raised only to be disappointed.
	In addition, there must be a commitment on funding. I know that the Government's implementation plan for the 14-to-19 agenda says that Ministers will provide the resources that are necessary to make it effective, and I dare say that that is what they intend. However, I hope that the Minister will accept that we need more specifics for this bold educational and social reform. It would be to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory were we to end up with a threadbare, insubstantial and underfunded programme. Please let us avoid that in the interests of all our young people.
	Secondly, I want to say something about setting. I recollect that the White Paper referred to setting no fewer than 19 times. In 1997, the Government said that it should become the norm in secondary schools. I appeal to the Minister to abandon the religion of localism, which seems to have infected all the political parties. If they think that setting is a good thing, let them issue guidance, make it the norm, and invest some political muscle and capital in ensuring that it happens.
	Finally, there were, last time I looked, no fewer than 61,000 looked-after children in this country, only 6 per cent. of whom secure five decent GCSEs and only 1 per cent. of whom go to university. Access matters, but they need tailored teaching, personalised learning and effective assistance. If the Government believe that they, and children in detention, are to be helped, and they want to practise the philosophy and principle of social inclusion in which they believe, they must give that the resources that it requires.

Linda Gilroy: In Plymouth, there is real enthusiasm for collaborative work, but the current performance measurement gives people little credit for doing important work that can achieve as mucharguably morein driving up standards than any single trust or foundation school. All 17 secondary schools, including the three grammar schools and two further education colleges, are part of collaboratives that extend the curriculum pathways for 14 to 19-year-old students. The quality and extent of those opportunities has been complimented by Ofsted. Schools also collaborate on staff training and development, including the training of new teachers. We want to take that work forward in radical new ways that include all our schools, not only the high-performing ones. We are concerned that some of that will be limited by the Bill's focus on the individual school as a unit of change and improvement.
	Personalisation and collaboration extend choice in the curriculum for parents and students, as well as driving improvement. Such work already addresses the postcode selection by mortgage issue, and has the potential to do moreprobably more than the White Paper proposals. It breaks down rigidities between grammar schools and the rest of the education community, up to a point, and could do much more in that direction to ensure that no child is ever made to feel that an 11-plus examination is a barrier to their progress. The significant personalisation money0.5 billion over the next two yearscould work very well with the grain of that and help us to go as far and as fast as any education community in the country. I am among those who accept that we have much more to do.
	In response to my earlier intervention, the Secretary of State said that she would actively encourage such an approach, but I seek her assurance that she will ensure that the money for personalisation and other specific funds is allocated in a way that complements collaboration and ensures that the money can follow the pupil from primary to secondary school. Most importantly, will she quickly find a way of measuring and acknowledgingindeed, rewardingsuccess across collaborating education communities, perhaps in relation to clause 114(2) to (4)?
	My city is an ambitious city. We are ambitious for our children's education and very forward-looking. We want every child to matter and every school to be an excellent school. If the further debate in Standing Committee could make it clear that what I have described is not only possible, but something that the Government will actively encourage and create a framework in which it can thrive, not just survive, then perhaps I, and probably others, could be a lot more confident that we can deliver what we all want for young people as thoroughly and as quickly as possible.

Brian Binley: I wrote to head teachers, talked to parents and parent groups and met local education authority officers. I must now try to summarise in three minutes the mass of information that they gave me. I shall do my best to do them justice.
	Most people to whom I spoke believed the Bill to be about structures and they hoped that it would be about rising standards. They said that they wanted help with standards and that they needed some action on several matters. I hope that we can amend the measure in Committee to help them achieve their objective. They want us to stop messing about with structures. They fear that education is a political football and say that it is time that it stopped being so. Although the Bill goes some way in that direction, it could have gone much further. Sadly, the Government withdrew from that position and that disappoints many of the people to whom I spoke.
	Those people told me that we need more setting in schools and that they need more help to set properly. They believe that one of the major ways in which to improve standards is to understand that children learn best in groups with others of similar ability. We need to direct proper resources to those groups to get the best out of everybody who attends our schools.
	The people to whom I spoke said that we should leave decision making to the professionals in our schools and they fear that we interfere too much. Two people told us that if we simply backed off, shut up and allowed teachers to get on with it, we would have better standards of education in all our schools. I believe thatwe should trust professionals. We, as politicians, do not do that enough.
	The people to whom I spoke believed that there should be a limited LEA model but that it should be mostly concerned with stepping in quickly when schools begin to fail. They also said that national league tables should be abolished. Everyone who talked to me told me that they were corrupt and open to manipulation. It is time we listened to that. Equivalence is a disgrace and I hope that the Minister for Schools tackles that point.
	In a short time, I have tried to sum up some of the things that the people to whom I spoke told me. They want us to help them raise standards and to get off their backs so that they can do that. I hope that the Bill can be amended and we can give them what they want so that children can benefit.

Peter Kilfoyle: When one reflects on the number of days that were rightly given to consideration of Welsh devolution and compares that with the six hours for this debate, it underlines the need for all right-thinking Members to vote against the programme motion. We are not here necessarily to help or hinder the Government but to hold them to account, and we are considering an important Bill.
	I endorse the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and some of those that my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley South (Mr. O'Hara) made about the many good things that have been done locally and nationally in our schools. My constituency, like everyone else's, has benefited.
	I want to underline that aspects of the Bill will be advantageous to people in constituencies such as mine, and they are welcome. However, let us make no mistake: at the heart of the Bill lies a structural issue about trust schools. That outweighs everything else in it. I agree with the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who said that we were considering something that was roughly analogous to grant-maintained schools.
	Looking around the Chamber, I see no more than a handful of hon. Members who were here in the winter of 199697. You will remember, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that one measure that came before us towards the fag-end of the Major years was the Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Bill. I had the honour of speaking about schools for the then Labour Opposition. We defeated the Bill by one vote, mainly thanks to a hapless Whip on the Government's side, I hasten to add. Nevertheless, we defeated it, and we were committed to removing what we saw as a travesty of educational policy that went under the banner of grant-maintained schools.
	This is the first time since 1997 that I have spoken in the House on education. I have no doubt that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and the hon. Members for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) and for Havant (Mr. Willetts) were absolutely sincere, even if they were making mischief with the Government, when they said that they applauded these policies. If these trust schools are introduced, they will atomise comprehensive, co-operative and cohesive local educational communities. I can put this no better than the head teacher of the Notre Dame specialist arts school, a girls' faith school in my constituency, who wrote to the Secretary of State to tell her that she had missed the point completely, and that trust schools and foundation schools were of no consequence whatever in meeting the demand for raised standards.

Douglas Carswell: I broadly welcome the Bill. It is perhaps one of the most heartening Bills on which I have spoken since becoming a Member of Parliament, and I hope that it will begin a radical transformation in our education system of the kind that I would like to see. At the centre of the Bill are the proposals to devolve to schools new powers and responsibilities, to empower schools to acquire self-governing trust status, and to devolve power and responsibility away from remote educational experts.
	The Bill will begin the fragmentation of monolithic state provision, and that is a fragmentation in which we should welcome and rejoice. For more than a generation, we have seen the steady advance of an invidious leftist orthodoxy through our state educational institutions. State-enforced, one-size-fits-all education has held down a generation of young people, and it is time to overturn it. The Bill does not mark the end of one-size-fits-all, state-enforced education, but it marks the beginning of the end. That is why I have no difficulty in supporting it.
	I served on the Education and Skills Committee, but I was unable to support its rearguard action to fight against the measures outlined in the White Paper. The Committee's critique of the White Paper conflicts with its decentralist rationale. If anything, the Government should be prepared to go much further than they have done in the Bill, but that can wait until another day. However, the Bill brings closer that other day, when we shall see a radical change to the status quo in our education system.
	The significance of the Bill is that even those on the centre left of British politics have lost faith in the state-enforced, one-size-fits-all system of education. They have lost faith in the notion that education can, or should, be run entirely from the centre. Having listened to the ideologues and the dinosaurs who oppose these measures, I believe that the only compelling critique of the Bill comes from those who say that it does not go far enough.
	Not all in the Bill is perfectthe poisoned pills placed in it by the Government on admissions, the unelected and unaccountable adjudicator, and the banning in clause 40 of interviews, for examplebut I suspect that those measures will be less important than is supposed. One day, we will iron out those flaws and then we will go much further. In the meantime, the Bill warms the cockles of my localist heart. I will go through the Lobby tonight with many Labour Members, and with a spring in my step.

Tom Levitt: I rise to speak as the proud product of comprehensive education, as both a pupil and a teacher. I want to follow on from where my fellow Derbyshire Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman), left off, by asking, who suffers when the system fails? With only a 56 per cent. GCSE pass rate, we are not delivering for enough children. Who suffers? It is the children from the deprived wards where expectations are lowest, the children whose parents are not well motivated to support them through education, and the children who leave school at 16 to go into low-paid jobs with low skills and to continue the cycle of deprivation. Those are the people whose needs we have to address.
	It would be a tragedy if the Bill failed tonight, and I welcome any support that it is being given, from wherever it comes. I particularly welcome the statement by the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) that the 18 years of Tory Government had failed to deliver for children in education. I agree with him entirely. I know that it failed. I was a teacher under a Tory Government, and I was a Labour member of an education authority under a Tory Government. I sat there while Derbyshire budgets were cut by 7 per cent. in real terms, and when we had larger primary class sizes, more outdoor toilets and more leaky roofs than anywhere else in the country. That was education under the Tories, and we must not return to it.
	The Bill is not a panacea. It does not say, We know best. It acknowledges that when schools have made major strides, they have done so by thinking out of the box and by finding new partnerspartners with a vested interest in skills, education or children. They have worked in harmony with good LEAs, or despite the lackadaisical LEAs, and they have said Every Child Matters.
	The Bill tells us, Here are some things that others have found to work. With the right local leadership in our schools, with supportive communities taking an active interest in their schools and with the right partners chosen by schools and encouraged by LEAs, we can create a framework to give better support to schools, children and learning. We can make a difference to the children who most need that difference to be made.
	The Bill opens doors rather than closing them. It does not guarantee higher standards, but it is the toolbox from which schools can select to ensure that they deliver for the children in their catchment areas.

Nadine Dorries: My girls are being educated at a state comprehensive, but I cannot allow the comments of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) to go unanswered. The hon. Gentleman, who has chaired the Education and Skills Committee, was educated at a selective grammar school, while I, a junior conservative Member, was educated at an inner-city secondary modern.
	My girls have not always been at a comprehensive school. They have also been educated at private schools, and I have never seen anything in a private school that could not be replicated in a state school. I was particularly impressed by Ampleforth, a Roman Catholic boarding school that follows the rule of St Benedict and has an ethos based on realising the potential of every child, regardless of ability. It takes an holistic approach to children and is not obsessed with league tables. Father Gabriel, the head, does nothing that could not be replicated in any other school. It is not necessary to have grand buildings to achieve culture, ethos and identity. What is necessary is parental preference and involvement. A school must be responsive to its community or, dare I say, market, and it definitely needs freedom.
	The Bill takes the first wimpish steps towards liberation of state schools from the asphyxiating control of local education authorities, and removes the remote governance of this place. By giving schools freedom, it will enable our children who are educated in the state system to benefit from the kind of education from which those in private schools benefit.
	We are all different. If that were not the case, we would all be sitting on this side of the House. Why, then, do Labour Members want to homogenise education? They want to keep it all at the same level, and ensure that everyone is taught in the same schools. We do not want that. We want parent power, and believe me, if a parent talks to the head of an independent school, the independent school jumps. Parents need and want that kind of power in the state system.
	Surely we should welcome the emphasis on personalised learning. After all, it is another thing from which children in fee-paying schools benefit while children in state schools do not.
	I speak very much with a mother's hat on. I wholeheartedly welcome the emphasis on nutrition in school and the work done in that connection by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh).
	I have an interest in special needs. I hope that trust schools will have the ability and the power to velcro the funds provided by the statementing system to children's special needs, and that some trust schools will specialise in that and will really benefit.
	I wholeheartedly support the Bill.

Michael Clapham: I am concerned about the direction in which we are travelling. The reforms that we have introduced since 1997 are a recipe for success, and success is beginning to come through: 2005 was the best year ever for results. The recipe is based on strong leadership from head teachers, substantial funding for schools and better, more highly trained teachers, working with children who are now motivated because they are in an environment that is more conducive to learning and teaching. The reforms have brought success, so it is standards that we should concentrate on, not structures.
	My fear is that altering the structures, and particularly turning foundation schools into trust schools, will lead to unintended consequences. I honestly believe that there is no evidence to support the argument that competition in education can drive up standards. The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) referred to the USA and in particular to California, but he missed out Minnesota. According to research done for the alternative White Paper, the charter school system in Minnesota did not work. Seventeen of its 88 charter schools have closed in the past decade, and the ones that remain open are providing education for better-off people.
	We need to move away from the argument that by altering the structure of education, we can drive up standards. Altering the structure will not help kids in my constituency, many of whom live in deprived areas. We are already starting to see the benefits of universal nursery education and of Sure Start, which is engaging not just the kids but the parents with education. It is the best thing that this Government have done, and by concentrating on standards we can make improvements.
	In conclusion, I support the National Union of Teachers' stance, which is that we should focus on comprehensive education and ensure that better standards lead to the results that we want to see.

David Gauke: A generation ago, there was a great debate in this country on how we should run the economy. On one side were those who argued in favour of big government, planning and protecting failed industries and institutions; on the other were those who advocated competition, allowing successful institutions to expand and letting industries that were no longer fit for purpose fail. The latter view prevailed because some of the brighter elements in the Labour party recognised that the debate was no longer worth having, and that they needed to adapt. The same is happening now, in that those brighter elements recognise that the values of choice and diversity are also vital to our public services. Fundamentally, that is what this Bill is about.
	Clause 2, which deals with choice and diversity, makes it clear that local education authorities must have regard to
	securing diversity in the provision of schools, and . . . increasing opportunities for parental choice.
	Clause 3 states that they must take into account parental representations on these matters, and that they must have regard to guidance provided by the Secretary of State. That provides a huge opportunity. The Secretary of State could say that if a majority of parents petition for a school to become a foundation school, it must become one. That is an excellent step.
	There will be many more foundation schools than community schools. The Government, of course, have a vested interest in encouraging more foundation schools; it is, after all, a flagship policy. A few weeks ago, there was a power of veto preventing the creation of any new community schools, but the Government have bowed to pressure from their Back Benchers. Who is to say that they will not reverse their position once the pressure is off? I hope that they do, that the veto will be used to prevent the creation of such schools, and that we will see more foundation schools. The Bill includes powers for the Secretary of State to close failing schools in the interests of the welfare of children.
	If we have more foundation schools, what powers will they have? They will have powers under the power to innovate programme and they can seek further derogations from regulations. For example, the Department is in discussion with some schools about varying local teachers' pay and conditions. That could be devolved to a local level under the Bill.
	The buzz phraseeverybody is using it in all sorts of situationsis direction of travel. There is no doubt about the direction of travel of the Bill. It is in the right direction, at least from my perspective, and I welcome it.

Dari Taylor: I will support the Government tonight in the Lobby. The reforms that have been introduced, in terms of diversity and structure, increased powers for local authorities, and parental choice, will all in their different ways drive up standards. The research is clear and outlines the problems. As the proportion of children from low income backgrounds goes up, average results go down. The research explains that children from different backgrounds have very different chances of achieving good results. Those facts must be acknowledged and, when they are, we will have a chance of putting reforms together that will improve standards.
	In my constituency in low income wards, only 24 per cent. of children achieve five good GCSEs. In average and high income wards, 80 per cent. of children achieve five good GCSEs. Over the past seven years, we have seen a 10 per cent. improvement in low income wards, but at that rate of improvement it will take 32 years for the children from low income families to match the achievement in average and high income wards. That is not acceptable. Reform is not an option: it is an absolute obligation.
	The issue is not investment. We have put that in and we are still struggling to deliver effective improvements in standards for children from low waged families. It is therefore crucial that we improve the structure of delivery. I say that while acknowledging the research based on academies. It is not popular, but I will say it because it is factually correct. In Middlesbrough we have three academies and two of them are seriously delivering. Over three years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of children achieving five good GCSEs. We have also seen parents becoming very involved in the schooling of their children, and that is to be commended. They are showing enthusiasm and commitment and once parents show that, we have serious support for increasing standards. Structure is important and I implore my colleagues to look at the evidence.
	If there was one reason for me to support the Bill, it would be the admissions framework assurance that will give top priority to admissions for looked-after children. That is such an important part of the whole. In addition, local authorities will have an explicit commitment to narrow the gap in attainment between pupils from different backgrounds.

Austin Mitchell: There are some good things in the Bill and it is a great improvement on the White Paper, but we would have had those aspects that are good anyway. I have to concentrate on what the Bill will do for Grimsby, and in my view the answer is very little.
	First, the gutless failure to abolish selective education in Lincolnshire means that every day more than 100 kids are transported from Grimsby by bus and Range Rover to selective schools. That represents a loss of ability and parent power to schools in Grimsby. With more choice, that number might increase. People in the villages on the border might be eligible for the six-mile free travel for poorer children to attend selective schools in Lincolnshire.
	Secondly, secondary education is improving fairly rapidly in Grimsby. We will probably have three academies, which means that there will be much more competition. How will schools improve their competitiveness and secure a higher place in the league tables? They will do so by attracting more kids of greater ability, and they can do that only by draining ability from the remaining schools in the area. Therefore, what measures will be put in place to help and sustain those schools suffering the drift away of able children to the better schools? How will those schools be protected, and how will they get the extra teachers, money and resources that they need to combat such competition?
	Thirdly, how will the schools commissioner ensure that we do not have what might be called postcode trust-school syndrome, by which I mean that trust schools will be in the better areas, and not the poor or deprived areas that really need them? Trust schools are a very good idea, as long as power in the school is proportionate to contribution. Governors will have to make a massive contribution to their schools: otherwise, there will be no point to the changes, and we will have what amounts to merely an academy-lite system.
	Fourthly, governors will have too many duties. Their duties will be enormous, and will prove to be much too hard for ordinary working people and families, and especially single-parent families, to perform. They also need to be paidnot out of school funds, but by the local authority or the stateif they are too to do the job properly, and if working people are to be represented among their ranks.
	Finally, the power of local authorities needs to be strengthened, not reduced. Only they can ensure fair play for the whole area, with a fair distribution of SEN kids and other children with problems, and expulsions.

Clive Efford: I resent some of the comments that have been made to me in this debate about the White Paper and the Bill, as they have suggested that I am somehow in favour of the status quo. I do not support the status quo: I accept that this Government have improved education across the board, in every school in my area. However, I am sure that those schools still occupy almost exactly the same places in the secondary education league tables as they did when those tables were first published.
	Much has been said about choice in regard to this Bill, but for whose benefit are we introducing that choice? Who are we empowering to make choices in the education process? Fiona Millar and Melissa Benn produced an alternative paper entitled Quality and Equality for all Children, in which they proposed a bounty for children attending schools that attract those who have not achieved higher results in primary education. In support of their argument, they quoted Tim Brighouse, who suggested that there should be a flat rate for pupils, with additional sums for those who had achieved only levels 3 or 2 at primary school.
	Similarly, Peter Hyman wrote an article for The Guardian on 24 October, in which he suggested that resources should be targeted at schools with the most challenging pupils. We need to ensure that the system drives up standards in those schools, but the Bill does not say how resources will be targeted on those areas, with the specific aim of raising standards.
	The Bill wants to promote diversity, and places an onus on local authorities to do that in their areas. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) said earlier, it is a question not of using the Bill to end selection in one sweep, but of challenging discrimination in our education service and removing the circumstances that cause people to opt out. However, the creation of a marketplace in our local education service requires winners and losers and, sadly, the people who will be the losers will be the same ones who have always lost in our education system. The challenge for all of us is to empower those parents so that they can ensure that their children's education improves.
	Who are we legislating for? Many parents do not engage in their children's education in the way that we would like them to. Recently, I visited a primary school in my constituency, where only five parents had bothered to visit any of the secondary schools that their children might attend. We must make sure that we improve standards in such schools, and that we legislate in such a way that they get the resources that they need.

Nick Gibb: This has been a fascinating and enjoyable debate, with pro-Bill speeches from Labour and Conservative Members and some passionate anti-Bill speeches from Labour Members. The number of people wanting to participate in the debate reflects the importance that many Members attach to education.
	This is a necessary, if rather modest, Bill. It is necessary because although we happily acknowledge that there has been a degree of improvement in standards since 1997, there is still a huge amount to do. It cannot be right that nearly half of 11-year-olds leave primary schools without the necessary skills in reading, writing and maths combined. These children rarely catch up when they go on to secondary school.
	It cannot be right that despite improvements in GCSE figures, still only 44 per cent. are achieving five or more good GCSEs when English and maths are included, or that the proportion gaining five or more good GCSEs is falling when the core subjects of English, maths, science and a foreign language are included.

Nia Griffith: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that GCSEs were set up as an amalgamation of O-levelsavailable to only about 25 per cent. of the populationand the CSE, and that a D is actually the average grade of GCSE expected of a pupil? We must stop labelling as failures the pupils who struggle to get D and E. A child may equally be under-achieving if he or she gets a B when capable of an A. We should be looking at the reasons behind that. Does he agree that we should stop labelling these children, as that is half the problem?

Nick Gibb: I accept the hon. Lady's point, but no one is blaming the children. Too many schools in this country are underperforming and letting down the very children she is talking about. For example, it cannot be right that employers complain that new graduate employees are writing what they describe as illiterate memos and letters. The National Audit Office has reported that 23 per cent. of secondary schools are underperforming. It is clear that education reform is still crucial.
	We support the Bill because:
	The system will finally be opened up to real parent power. All schools will be able to have Academy style freedoms . . . No one will be able to veto parents starting new schools or new providers coming in, simply on the basis that there are surplus places.
	How could anyone disagree with the Prime Minister when he said that? Even after the unnecessary concessions made to Labour rebels in the Secretary of State's letter, these essential principles of reform remain as she described them. She said:
	I remain committed to all the freedoms for foundation and trust schools that we set out in the White Paperschools owning their own buildings, employing their own staff and setting their own admission arrangements . . . the ability of good schools to expand, as set out in the White Paper, will remain.

Tom Levitt: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House whether Conservative members of the Local Government Association regard the changes that are being made to the Bill as unnecessary? I do not think that they do.

Nick Gibb: We have a diverse set of opinions in the Conservative party, but we all believe in more good schools. It is important that good schoolsschools that are over-subscribed by 10 applications for every placeare allowed to expand if they wish. It is important that committees made up of people with a vested interest to maintain the status quo are not allowed to veto such expansion. That is why we welcome the abolition of the school organisation committees in clause 27 and the abolition, in effect, of the surplus places rule.
	It is important that underperforming and failing schools are reformed or closed over a much shorter time scale, rather than allowing them to languish year after year, providing a poor education to thousands of youngsters. That is why we welcome the Bill's provisions to make it easier to close bad schools.
	School discipline remains a major concern of parents and is a key reason why many teachers are leaving the profession.
	The Steer committee has made some important recommendations about giving teachers statutory powers over discipline, and we welcome the fact that the Bill contains those new powers. Good behaviour is crucial to raise standards in our schools. However, we have some serious concerns about parts of the Bill. It is over-prescriptive on admissions, reflecting a world view that the quality of a school is driven by its intake, rather than by the quality of its teaching and leadership. The school adjudicator's powers, which are increased in the Bill, need to be tempered by a right of appeal. We will table amendments on those issues and amendments to undo the unnecessary concessions in the Secretary of State's letter.
	Despite all the measures in the Bill that make it easier to establish foundation schools, trust schools and academies, the Conservative party could have taken the view that, because the Bill did not go far enough, we would oppose it. With a looming Labour rebellion, that approach would have ended up with the Bill being defeated. We could have formed an unholy alliance with Labour's rebels in the No Lobby. The public loathe that kind of politics. Such an approach brings politics into disrepute and is deeply cynical, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has set his leadership against it. He has made it clear that, when the Government do the right thing, we will support them.

Clive Efford: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Nick Gibb: I will not give way.
	Our view is that the Bill's net effect, taking the good with the bad, will make it easier to establish trust schools and therefore increase the freedoms available to our schools.
	The Secretary of State has written to my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) to ask why, if we support the Bill, we oppose the programme motion. We oppose the programme motion, because we almost always oppose programme motions, as they are an affront to the procedures of the House. It would be wrong therefore if we failed to oppose this programme motion simply because we happen to support the Bill. Some of the concessions made to Labour rebels that were agreed behind closed doors should be debated more fully on the Floor of the Houseissues such as the powers of the unelected schools adjudicator; the outlawing of interviews by schools, even interviews that help to enforce home-school contracts, which are particularly important in raising standards in inner city schools; and, of course, the concessions on community schools.
	Those concessions were negotiated by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), who is the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education and Skills, on which I had the pleasure to serve. I was struck by his impressive speech, in which he said that we did not think hard enoughall of us, collectivelyabout what we replaced grammar schools with and that some of us have been slow in realising that vision. He is right: we need to take ideology out of education and to replace it with what works.
	A similar point was made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke)a former Secretary of State for Education and Sciencein an excellent speech. He said that we may now be moving towards a consensus, perhaps one that is 20 years too late, and that we should try to build a consensus on how we tackle low expectations and poor leadership and standards in schools, such as those referred to by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), where only 8 per cent. of pupils achieved five or more good GCSEs in the 1990s.
	Consensus was also sought by the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), in a very powerful and passionate speech, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson), whose speech was very different from that of the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter). I was surprised by the speech of the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), who leads on the issue for the Liberal Democrats. She agrees with the provisions on discipline and vocational education, yet she is pledged to vote against the Bill. She also agrees with not serving mechanically recovered turkey, yet she is pledged to vote against those provisions in the Bill. Perhaps her predecessor and fellow Liberal, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), hit the nail on the head when he said, in the shortest speech that I have ever heard him give, that this was a Tory Bill. In a very thoughtful and candid speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) made a similar point when he asked how Conservative Members could vote against a Bill that promotes diversity and choice. He, indeed, is right.
	I understand the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) about the ban on interviews, particularly for faith schools such as the London Oratory. We will table amendments to try to redress that in Committee.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Salisbury (Robert Key) and for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) are passionate about the grammar schools in their constituencies. I have been to both the secondary moderns that my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West referred toWellington school and Ashton on Mersey school. Despite 40 per cent. of the children in Trafford going on to grammar schools and Wellington school taking some of the other 60 per cent., 73 per cent. of its pupils achieve five or more grades of A to C at GCSE. It can be done.
	In a highly effective three-minute speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) made the key point that we need more good schools. My hon. Friends the Members for Buckingham (John Bercow) and for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley) sought more setting in schools. I believe that that is the way forward.
	This is a modest Bill, but it is significant in one important respect. It probably marks the last education Bill that we will see from this Administration and the last serious education reform that we are likely to see over the next few years. Education remains one of the most crucial issues facing this country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) said in his speech, in today's increasingly competitive world in which knowledge and intellect are the source of new wealth creation, the only way that we can compete with India and China and the millions of highly educated graduates these countries are producing is if we can deliver a significantly improved quality of education.
	Leaving aside the economic importance of the issue, we should also want all our children to be highly educated for its own sake, so that they can enjoy and enrich our culture. That means ensuring that children are taught to read properly and effectively at primary school with methods that workwith synthetic phonics rather than whole language teachingthat maths is taught properly and that children learn their multiplication tables. We need to ensure that the curriculum is rigorous and that pupils are set by ability so that the less able have the time and space to learn and the most able are stretched to their full potential.
	What the Bill, the White Paper and the row and debates in the Labour party over the past few months reveal is that Labour can no longer deliver any future serious reform to our education system. What Lord Kinnock and Lady Morris have established, together with all the Labour Members who signed up to the alternative White Paper, is that only a Conservative Administration can now deliver the changes we still need in our education system if we are to provide for a prosperous and fulfilled future for the next generation.
	We support the Bill this evening, modest though it is, because we believe that it will increase the freedoms that are available to schools and that it will make it easier to close bad schools, easier to expand good schools and easier to establish new schools. All this is a small step to ensuring that children from whatever background get a better education. That is why I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends and right hon. and hon. Members from all wings of the Labour party to join us in the Lobby in support of the Bill.

Jacqui Smith: I start by thanking all the Members who contributed to this very lively debate. I am not surprised. As the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) suggested, education is the passion that brought many of us into politics. This debate has built on the important debate that we had since we published the White Paper and up to the publication of the Bill, a debate that involved parliamentary colleagues. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) and the work of the Education and Skills Committee in taking forward that debate.
	I pay tribute to other hon. Friends and parliamentary colleagues, as welleven to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) for his contribution to the debate that we have had since the White Paper. The debate has also included local government, head teachers and school staff, including through their professional associations. The Bill is better for having gone through that process.
	We want to continue the scrutiny and discussions in Committee, which is why I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) is frankly wrong to ask people to vote against the programme motion, as is the Conservative party. The programme motion sets an end date for consideration of the Bill in Committee. I know that some colleagues are worried that that might limit the time available for scrutiny, but I can assure them that the number of Committee sittings and how long they last is not in the motion. We have already said to Opposition parties that we are prepared to be flexible about this matter to ensure that the Bill has all the scrutiny necessary in Committee and two days for Report stage and Third Reading on the Floor of the House. I ask my hon. Friends and others to support the programme motion.
	During the debate, many colleagues have contributed their experience as teachers, governors, local councillors and parents. I taught for 11 years before coming into this place. I taught in the lean years, when funding per pupil was falling in real terms, when we used to run around putting buckets under leaky roofs, and when the four in 10 11-year-olds who came into secondary schools without the necessary levels of English and Maths sank or swamand usually sankon their own. So, although I welcome support from wherever it comes in the House, quite frankly I would not depend on Tories to deliver our shared ambition to provide the best education for every child, wherever they live, whatever their background.
	We have been taken back in time by the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) and the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke)back to 1987, back to Margaret Thatcher. Well, there is one thing that can be said about those years: at least then Tories used to vote with the courage of their convictions. Tonight, they will be voting with the courage of our convictions, because the Bill builds on the hard work of staff, governors, school leaders and local authorities throughout the country, backed by Labour Government investment and reform, which has led to the best ever results, more young people staying on and getting on, and fewer failing schools.
	For this Government, however, good enough has never been good enough. While there are still seven out of 10 young people on free school meals who do not get five good GCSEs, while too many leave education and training at 16, and while where someone comes from still determines where they will get to, there is more to be done, and only a Labour Government can do it. That is why clause 1 spells out what is at the heart of our reform: ensuring that every child fulfils their educational potential.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) is right to focus the Government on disadvantage, but that is what the Bill does and what our funding has been doing. The Bill is about more one-to-one and small group tuition, more targeted support for disadvantaged families and more full-time provision for excluded pupilsthe sorts of things argued for by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) as well.

John Bercow: Given that children in young offender institutions receive, on average, only eight hours of education a week, but that the Minister says that the Bill is intended to help all children, will she be good enough to tell me and the House where in the 167 clauses, 18 schedules and 228 pages better provision is made for those children, because I cannot see it?

Jacqui Smith: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have looked in detail at the Green Paper that we have already published about offender education.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) made the important point about special educational needs and, of course, ensuring the potential of every pupil covers that. I can assure him that all maintained schools, including trust schools, have a duty to admit pupils who have that school named on a statement.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) rightly argues that the extra funding that we are making available for personalised learning should be used to develop collaborative initiatives in Plymouth. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) identified the progress being made for looked-after children in the Bill.
	This is a Bill that gives every child an entitlement to a choice of new vocational diplomas, rightly highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley South (Mr. O'Hara), whose authority is a pathfinder in taking forward that work. It is a Bill that makes healthy food and drink available throughout the school day. It opens up access to a range of exciting activities after school and in spare time.
	Remaining on those issues, I welcome to the Front Bench the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather). I hope that when she has been in her job a bit longer she will bring a bit more coherence to the Liberal Democrat position. As it is, I have to say that I am quite looking forward to the next Focus leaflet. Alongside the headline, There's a hole in the road. The Lib Dems are looking into it, will be one saying, And by the way, we've just voted against support for school discipline, more vocational choice, better school food and youth facilities and a tougher admissions code.
	Furthermore, this is a Bill that ensures that teachers can teach and children can learn, free from bullying and the persistent low-level disruption that blights too many classrooms.
	Turning to trust schools, I have great respect for the experience, particularly the teaching experience, of my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) and for Elmet (Colin Burgon), but I think that they are wrong in arguing that there is not a link between what happens in the classroom and the potential of the trust school model. What happens in the classroom fundamentally depends on the leadership of the school, and we can find more ways to support that.
	That is why this is a Bill that empowers schools, not to go it alone, but to work with other schools, colleges and external partners to meet the particular needs of their school community. That was the point made so brilliantly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), when he talked about the experience of education action zones and I was reminded why he was such a fantastic Secretary of State for Education and Employment. It was the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Martin Linton), who argued that higher standards in schools are not a zero sum game. Innovation in the system helps to achieve higher standards.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher) suggested that trust schools would mean an irreversible transfer of assets. Let me reassure him that that is not the case. When a trust school wishes to dispose of non-playing field land, it will have to inform the local authority, which will be able to object or claim a share of the proceeds. If a trust is removed, the assets will revert to the governing body or, in the case of school closure, to the local authority.
	I turn now to the issues raised by several hon. Members about the role of local authorities. This is a Bill that enshrines the role of local authorities as the champion of parents and pupils, and as the guarantor of standardsmy hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman) rightly challenged hon. Members to look to improving standards in their constituencies. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) that the tougher powers for local authorities to intervene earlier and more strongly where schools are failing will apply to all schools whatever their status. There is also a key role for local authorities as the strategic leader of local services.
	In very thoughtful speeches, my right hon. Friends the Members for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) and for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) rightly argued for the important role that local authorities can play, first, of course, in planning places and particularly in relation to expansion. It has been possible for all categories of school to publish expansion proposals since June 2003, but that is not an unfettered right. What is new is that the Bill provides for the local authority, in its new role as a champion of parents and pupils, to take responsibility for school organisation decisions, rather than the school organisation committee. In reaching any decision, the local authority and the school adjudicator will take into account the impact on overall standards in an area.
	My right hon. Friends also argued strongly for local authorities to bring together the elements of their responsibility for children's services and for delivering on our belief that every child matters, alongside their role in commissioning schools. That is a key area of the new strategic role for local authorities, which is why every school will have a duty to pay regard to the children and young people's plan produced by the local authority.
	Several of my hon. Friends raised the issue of community schools and local authorities' ability to propose the establishment of such schools. May I reiterate what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said this morning? We are content to explore in Committee whether we should set out in legislationand, if so, howthe factors that the Secretary of State must consider in reaching a decision about whether to allow a community school proposal to proceed. Finally, the Bill guarantees fair access to the system of higher standards that we believe that we can build through its provisions and our reform programme. It will do so not just for people who can afford to move house for it or who can afford to pay for it but for everybody.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor), throughout the debate and in a very thoughtful speech this evening, has emphasised the need for fair admissions, and we have included that in our objective. I assure my hon. Friends that we can consider in Committee the detail of the admissions code and the criteria that will apply to it, as my right hon. Friend spelt out. Some hon. Members expressed concern about the way in which the admissions forums will work in their new strengthened role, but we can look at regulations on reforming admissions forums so that they can play that role not only by referring schools to the adjudicator and producing an annual report but by establishing a collective commitment to fair access across a local authority area. Those are all important questions, and I give the House a commitment that we can consider them in Committee.
	The Bill is about delivering equity alongside excellence. It is about delivering less selection and more opportunity. Ironically, if Members vote against it this evening they will vote for weaker admissions arrangements. It is a decisive move away from the policies previously embraced by the Oppositiona grammar school in every town; a few grant-maintained schools opting out of the local family schools and receiving the differential capital funding available at the time; and a passport out for a few children, rather than the drafting in of support for the many.

David Davies: We support the Government.

Jacqui Smith: I have already welcomed the Opposition's support. While I am glad that they are trying to put their past behind them[Interruption.] There was some uncertainty among Opposition Members about the issue, and some of them have been brought kicking and screaming and flipping and flopping to our door. We should not be in any doubt: this is a Labour Bill. A vote for the Bill today is a vote to build on the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside, my noble Friend Baroness Morris and my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke). The next stage of reform is built on the foundations created by the Labour Government. A vote for the Bill is a vote for the belief that every child's potential and achievement matters; that every school must be empowered to deliver the transformation of children's lives; and that a job this big needs to draft in all the support that it can to our schools to make the difference. It is a vote for the aspirations of parents and children throughout the country; it is a vote for Labour values; and I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:
	The House divided: Ayes 458, Noes 115.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Bill read a Second time.

EDUCATION AND INSPECTIONS BILL (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 83A(6) (Programme motions),
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Education and Inspections Bill:
	Committal
	1.   The Bill shall be committed to a Standing Committee.
	Proceedings in Standing Committee
	2.   Proceedings in the Standing Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 11th May 2006.
	3.   The Standing Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
	Consideration and Third Reading
	4.   Proceedings on consideration and Third Reading shall be completed in two days.
	5.   Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours before the moment of interruption on the second day of proceedings.
	6.   Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
	7.   Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.
	Other proceedings
	8.   Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.[Mr. Cawsey.]
	The House divided: Ayes 300, Noes 290.

Question accordingly agreed to.

EDUCATION AND INSPECTIONS BILL [MONEY]

Queen's recommendation having been signified
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a) (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with Bills),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Education and Inspections Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of
	(a)   expenditure incurred by virtue of the Act by the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills or by a Minister of the Crown, and
	(b)   any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.[Mr. Cawsey.]
	Question agreed to.

EDUCATION AND INSPECTIONS BILL [WAYS AND MEANS]

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a) (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with Bills),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Education and Inspections Bill, it is expedient to authorise
	(1)   the payment of fees by local authorities to Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills, and
	(2)   the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.[Mr. Cawsey.]
	Question agreed to.

CHILDREN AND ADOPTION BILL [LORDS] (PROGRAMME) (NO. 2) BILL

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 83A(6) (Programme motions),
	That the Order of 2nd March 2006 (Children and Adoption Bill [Lords] (Programme)) be varied by the substitution in paragraph   2 (time for conclusion of proceedings in Standing Committee) for the words Thursday 16th March 2006 of the words Tuesday 21st March 2006.[Mr. Cawsey.]
	Question agreed to.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Will hon. Members leave the Chamber by all possible means if they are not staying for the rest of the proceedings?

PETITIONS
	  
	Business Rates

7.32 pm

John Baron: This petition is from residents using Billericay high street, who are concerned that further above-inflationary increases in business rates are pushing up prices and will threaten some independent shops with closure.
	The petitioners are concerned that those shops could be replaced by theme pubs and supermarkets, as has happened in neighbouring towns. The high street has a good balance between day and night trade at present, and residents and shopkeepers wish to keep it that way. They do not want to see the high street turned into a 'pub alley'.
	The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to give Billericay shopkeepers some respite by halting any planned increases in business rates.
	And the petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Free Residential Care

Nick Brown: I wish to present the petition of Jean Weatheritt, a constituent of mine living in Oban court, Byker and others. The petition
	Declares that free residential care should be made available to all who need it. The Petitioners further declare that the Barnett formula should be scrapped in order to ensure that free care is available to all, whether they live in England, Scotland or Wales.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for health to respond to the Petitioners concerns.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Asylum Seekers

Mark Oaten: I wish to present a petition from Winchester Voice for Refugees, which calls on the Government to allow asylum seekers whose claims have failed to work rather than just seeking benefits.
	To lie upon the Table.

Pet Crematoria

Mark Simmonds: I wish to present a petition signed by 3,868 people on behalf of the National Federation of Private Pet Crematoria, which opposes the classification, operation and licensing of pet crematoria as landfill sites.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to remove pet crematoria from the category of landfill sites.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Red Diesel Derogation

David Drew: I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of those calling for derogation for red diesel, signed by 1,015 narrow boat owners. A further 3,000 people asked to be associated with it. I pay particular tribute to the work of John Stokie Chard, who collected many of the signatures.
	The Petition of narrow boat owners from the canals of the UK and others,
	Declares its support for the continuation of the red diesel derogation currently available to marine owners in the UK which is due to expire on 31st December 2006; welcomes the decision announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the pre-budget statement of the intent to negotiate an extension of that derogation and notes that the Financial Secretary needs to take account of the impact any loss of the red diesel derogation would have on narrow boat owners given the technical problems that will result from the inevitable conversion of engines, and the costs of heating living space. At a time when there is a massive increase in activity on Britain's waterways and canals, a direct result of government investment and help, this would be totally counterproductive.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Financial Secretary to consult fully with representatives from the Royal Yacht Association and the British Marine Federation and boat owners in general in order to secure this derogation.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

OLDER DRIVERS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Mr. Alan Campbell.]

Brian Iddon: Many issues that Members bring to Parliament arise from constituency work, and this is one of them.
	Three-year-old Amicie Onyema Nwokeochar was on the footpath outside a chip shop in Highfield road in my constituency at lunchtime on 15 November 2003 when a car mounted the pavement and ploughed into the chip shop. Tragically, Amicie died within one hour of being admitted to hospital as a result of massive chest trauma following a collision with the car. Amicie lived in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Ruth Kelly), but he regularly visited his grandma Mrs. Carol Brooks, who lives just around the corner from the chip shop.
	The car was driven by a man within a few weeks of his 90th birthday, who started driving before a driving test became compulsory under the Road Traffic Act 1934. He claimed that he had pressed the accelerator of his Honda Concerto car instead of the brake while parking. The driver was convicted on 27 May 2004 of driving without due care and attention, fined 1,000 and banned from driving for two years. A police officer who gave evidence in the coroner's court, which recorded a verdict of accidental death, said that the accident was probably aggravated by the medical condition of the elderly driver, who surrendered his licence voluntarily to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.
	Due to an ongoing heart condition, the driver was unable to attend the coroner's court, so the coroner could not cross-examine him. There is a requirement that all those who have attained the age of 70 submit themselves for a medical examination every three years. Form D45, which is sent out automatically by the DVLA, contains questions about a driver's health. If the DVLA is told of any conditions, it may require that medical evidence be provided before a licence is renewed. However, that is not a rigorous test of ability to drive and Amicie's grandmother, Mrs. Carol Brooks, and the family's solicitor, Mr. Tim Woods of Carl Chapman  Co, whose offices are in my constituency, have requested that I campaign for compulsory cognitive tests to be brought in for older drivers. They believe that, at the very least, form D45 should be completed in the presence of a general practitioner who has known the driver for at least three years, and that the form should include a section enabling the GP to give a statement on the driver's ability to drive. In their opinion, evidence of a recent eyesight test should also be presented to the DVLA.
	Mrs. Brooks and Mr. Woods believe that a person's ability to control the car that they actually drive should also be tested in some way. On 25 October 2005, The Times reported that too many older drivers in Torquay, a well-known retirement town, were hitting the accelerator rather than the brake and thereby causing accidents. Police Constable Chris Lancaster, Torbay's road safety officer, recommends that older drivers enrol on a roadfit scheme, which allows participants to take part in a one-hour observed driving exercise to check their ability to drive. I am not sure whether this is a local or national scheme, but it sounds like a good idea to me.
	Two million people aged 70 or over now hold a driving licence, and that figure is likely to rise to 4.5 million by 2015. The biggest increase in older active licence-holders has been among older women. Between 1965 and 1985, there was a 200 per cent. increase in male drivers aged over 65, but a 600 per cent. increase in female drivers over that age. In 2004, 550 car accidents out of a total of 7,035 involving drivers aged over 70about 8 per cent.resulted in the driver being killed or seriously injured. Despite an increase in the number of older drivers, between 1979 and 1996 there was a significant fallfrom 10 per cent. to 4.6 per cent.in the number of male casualties aged 60 to 69. The number of male casualties aged 70 to 79 has also fallen, but there has been a modest increase in the number aged 80 or over.
	Older drivers drive less than those in other age groups. The rate of motor vehicle crashes per mile driven is higher for the 70-plus age group than for middle-aged drivers, but only after the age of 85 does it reach or surpass the rate for younger drivers. However, older people are, unsurprisingly, over-represented in accidents involving death because of their increased frailty. They drive more slowly than other drivers and they cannot handle traffic conflict situations very well. The 60 to 69-year-old age group have a higher percentage of accidents at junctions in both rural and urban settings. They drive less at night due to deteriorating eyesight, and they have to be closer to signs to be able to read them.

David Drew: My hon. Friend the Minister has heard me make this point before, but I will do so again now because it is very important. When I talked to my local group representing those who suffer from macular degeneration, which, sadly, is a common problem in older age, I was staggered to learn that, virtually to a person, they had volunteered to give up driving. There was no medical requirement for them so to do, even though they themselves felt unsafe when driving. Does my hon. Friend agree that something needs to be done about that?

Brian Iddon: I certainly do, and that intervention underlines the message that my Adjournment debate is intended to give to my hon. Friend the Minister.
	Older drivers are badly affected by the glare from oncoming headlights. The visual field shrinks significantly beyond the age of 75. They suffer commonly from muscle and joint stiffness, which affects their ability to turn their head or body in the car. They are less able to monitor their position in dense traffic, reverse safely or change lanes safely as a result. Reaction times are also slower for older people. Of course, many older drivers are far more experienced than younger drivers. Nevertheless, in their late 60s and 70s, older drivers' impairments seem to outweigh any advantages that they may have accumulated with their years of experience and more cautious behaviour, and combined with their increased frailty, they are beginning to meet more risks on the road. However, many older drivers are aware of that increased risk and avoid more dangerous situations such as driving at night or in dense traffic.
	Older drivers are more likely to take medication that may affect their driving. There is reliable evidence that certain prescribed medicines increase the risk of a road traffic accident, especially for older drivers. Anxiolytics as a classbenzodiazepines, for exampleproduce up to a fivefold increase in risk. Sedation and drowsiness are associated with pain-killing medicines containing opiates and opioids, including over-the-counter products. How many doctors discuss those increased risks with their older patients? Although some doctors are reluctant to advise their patients on driving, an increase in litigation, in which they are held liable in the event of an accident for not having advised a patient to stop driving, should act as a caution.
	Certain diseases, such as epilepsy and diabetes, carry with them an increased risk of accidents on the road. A combination of those risks, which is more likely to occur in an older person, produces a much higher risk. Heart disease, however, is a fairly rare cause of traffic accidents. In a study of 2,000 acute collapses at the wheel while driving that led to a police-reported accident involving personal injury, only 10 per cent. were shown to be caused by a heart attack and 7 per cent. by stroke, the rest being due to epilepsy or diabetic hypoglycaemia. Many older people recover well enough from strokes to enable them to drive again.
	A given dose of alcohol results in a higher blood alcohol concentration in an older person because of the reduced water content of the blood compared with a younger person of similar weight and sex. Alcohol can also increase night blindness and sensitivity to glare. The prevalence of dementing disorders is estimated to be as high as 47 per cent. for those aged 85 or older. Individuals with dementia are twice as likely to be involved in an accident as non-demented older people.
	Not all older drivers are dangerous, although some clearly are. I am reminded of the case of veteran driver Tom Soulby, who got a lot of publicity last yearhis 100th yearwhen he complained that his GP was insisting that he stop driving, after 82 years. Legislating on the ground of age is discriminatory. Therefore, if we are to deal with the dangers that some older drivers present on the road, we need to ascertain their fitness to drive in a more sensible way than we do now.
	There are measures that the Government can encourage to make older drivers safer on the road. The motor industry is beginning to think about the design of motor vehicles with older drivers in mind. Design features include hand-operated braking and acceleration controls, other easily operated controls and easily readable instrument panels, swivelling seats, higher roofs and step-in access with rising seats, sliding doors, intelligent night vision systems and even rear view cameras. We can expect to see advertisements in future aiming cars at the older driver, alongside the racy adverts that are clearly aimed at the younger driver. Some useful changes, such as satellite navigation and sensors in front and rear bumpers are already with us.
	We should not forget that older people are more at risk as pedestrians than as drivers. In general, older drivers are a lot safer than younger drivers. In 2004, the number of 16 to 19-year-olds and their passengers killed on Britain's roads increased by 12 per cent., while the annual rate for all drivers fellI am glad to sayby 8 per cent.
	In late 2004, the DVLA commissioned an independent review to assess the effectiveness of the present medical licensing system. It believes, as my constituents do, that the existing rules are outdated and inadequate.Research commissioned by the DVLA has shown that the present system is widely abused, with only 10 per cent. of drivers with a notifiable condition admitting it on the D45 form that they return to the DVLA. Further reports in the early part of this year indicate that the DVLA is about to embark on a public consultation on proposals to require drivers over the age of 75 to take a fitness-to-drive test every five years. It is proposed that those drivers who have reached that age will be required to bear the cost of attending an assessment centre to complete a paper-based test designed to examine their fitness to drive. A draft EU directive may require drivers over the age of 70 to renew their driving licences every five years instead of every three years, as now.
	My constituent Mrs. Carol Brooks, and her family's solicitor Mr. Tim Woods, have also asked me to look at the Motability scheme and the safety record of its drivers. This scheme was launched in 1977, following the introduction of the mobility allowance the previous year. Prior to that, only disabled drivers who could drive themselves received help with transport. Most were supplied with a small, blue, single-seat, three-wheeled motorised invalid trike, which was incapable of carrying any passengers.
	According to a parliamentary answer of 13 June 2005, more than 30 motor manufacturers supply over 140,000 new vehicles to the scheme annually, thus giving 400,000 disabled people mobility. Of those who benefit from the scheme, 33 per cent. are not actually the drivers of the vehicle, and around 10 per cent. of the drivers who benefit from the scheme require special adaptations to the vehicle to enable them to drive safely and in comfort.
	The point has been made to me by Mrs. Brooks that the scheme is extremely generous with respect to the choice of vehicle. In her opinion, a significant number of disabled older drivers are allowed to purchase quite powerful vehicles. Therefore, does my hon. Friend the Minister feel that there is adequate oversight of the scheme to ensure that the purchased vehicle is suited to the capabilities of the older disabled driver?
	We cannot discriminate against older drivers, but the fact is that they become an increasing risk to themselves and other road users with advancing age. In my opinion, more can be done to minimise the riskby the Government, through legislation, regulation and careful planning of the road network and its signage, and by the manufacturers of motor vehicles designed with older people in mind.
	The evidence shows that we cannot leave older drivers to assess their own ability. Most are reluctant to give up the convenience of driving their own car, especially after a lifetime of motoring.
	I look forward to my hon. Friend's response.

Stephen Ladyman: I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) on securing this debate. This is not his only contribution to road safety: he is a doughty campaigner on road safety in general, and he has bent my ear about this matter for some time. He is quite right to do so; the case of Amicie Nwokeochar is tragic and very sad, and we have to learn from it.
	As my hon. Friend said, Amicie's death was the result of an accident caused by a man who was nearly 90 years old and who was subsequently found guilty of careless driving. For obvious reasons, I shall not comment directly on the case, which raises some general matters of which account should be taken.
	I agree with my hon. Friend that we should do everything that is reasonably possible to avoid any repetition of such a dreadful accident. That is why the Government take the matter at the heart of this debate, and the issue of road safety in general, so seriously. My hon. Friend was involved in the Second Reading debate of the Road Safety Bill just a few days ago. He will know that it contains various measures designed to help to reduce road traffic casualties. I very much welcomed his contribution to last week's debate.
	None of us can avoid the ageing process. The way in which it affects our mobility and fitness to drive will, of course, vary from individual to individual, but it is understandable that many motorists should want to continue to drive for as long as they are physically and mentally able.
	The ageing of the population is one of the major structural changes facing the UK. The safety implications of our wish to remain mobile and independent will come increasingly to the fore as life expectancy and the average age of the population rises. Sadly, that will also increase the potential for older drivers to be casualties in road crashes, not necessarily as the cause but as a victim. It is very important, therefore, that we carefully consider not only the safety of older drivers but their relationship with other road users.
	The public have every right to be concerned where older drivers have been involved in or have been responsible for accidents. Such incidents are often tragic and the issues they raise must never be forgotten, but, compared with the general picture of road traffic casualties and their causes, they tend to be the exception.
	A great deal of research has been conducted into the accident involvement of and casualty causation for older drivers. Studies have shown consistently that older drivers do not pose a significant excess risk of injury to other road users compared with drivers of other ages, particularly young drivers. My hon. Friend is also concerned about the rate of accidents caused by younger drivers.
	The indications are that many older drivers tend to regulate themselves by driving lower mileages, and keep within their limitations by avoiding, or reducing their driving at, higher risk times such as rush hours, at night and in the winter. This research has also shown that older drivers, when involved in accidents, are themselves more likely to be injured than others.
	In our view, the crucial factor is not age but the physical and mental fitness of the driver to drive competently and safely. Old age alone should not be a bar to driving; my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East would share that sentiment. A number of statutory requirements currently apply to older drivers. The present driver licensing system recognises that, after the age of 70, there is a greater likelihood that health will deteriorate in ways that might affect driving. Licences expire at that age and must be renewed every three years thereafter. At each renewal, applicants are required to answer questions about their health and eyesight and to certify that they meet the required standards.
	There is a further legal requirement for drivers of any age to inform the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency if they become aware of the onset or worsening of any health condition that might affect their fitness to drive safely. Failure to do so is a serious offence. When such notification is received, the DVLA will make medical inquiries and reach a decision about future entitlement to drive.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who is concerned about road safety, raised the issue of macular degeneration and related issues. The same rules apply to people suffering from macular degeneration as apply to any other eyesight condition. If it is shown that somebody suffers from macular degeneration, which they ought to indicate to the DVLA, the DVLA will be responsible for making sure that an appropriate eye examination is performed and a judgment is made about fitness to continue to drive.

David Drew: The problem is that medical intervention should kick that off. I argue that, very often, doctors will not take the initiative and they leave it up to the individual.

Stephen Ladyman: I understand my hon. Friend's concern and I will say in a moment how we might address that. The process of self-declaration and other issues affecting competence to drive are exactly the same for macular degeneration as they are for any other condition that affects a person's eyesight.
	In addition to self-declaration, the DVLA frequently receives notification of potentially unfit drivers from third parties, particularly the police, doctors or concerned relatives or friends. If someone wants to inform us confidentially that someone is unfit to drive, we are happy to receive that information.
	We also aim to ensure that doctors are well informed about the relevance of certain medical conditions to driving, and they obviously have a role in advising patients whether they should continue to drive. The DVLA issues guidance to all GPs for that purpose, which includes advising people who suffer from macular degeneration. In addition, the General Medical Council has issued guidelines to advise doctors to inform the DVLA about unfit patients who may have failed to declare themselves. In other words, the GMC expects doctors to do what my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud suggests, although doctors are not required to do so by law.
	Present driver licensing arrangements are based on the second EU directive on driving licences91/439/EEC, for those hon. Members who want to dig it out and read it for themselveswhich sets minimum standards of medical fitness for driving, and on the advice of the Secretary of State's six honorary medical advisory panels. The panels comprise eminent medical practitioners and medical scientists who are acknowledged experts in their field.
	Eyesight is, of course, a crucial element in medical fitness to drive. All drivers, of whatever age, are required to demonstrate their ability to read a number plate from a distance of 20.5 m and to inform the DVLA if they are no longer able to do so. That long-standing test has been effective in determining whether those who wish to drive have adequate vision. It is easy for the police to conduct and it complies with the current visual standard for driving set out in the second EU directive.
	If, after an investigation by the DVLA's medical advisers, a driver is found to be unfit, or if co-operation is withheld, his or her licence may be revoked. In some cases, a driver may also be required to re-sit a driving test. Courts, too, have powers to require someone to take a driving test if, following a motoring offence, they have reason to doubt the individual's competence to drive. Those arrangements have, in general, been found to work satisfactorily.
	Although there is no denying the potential danger posed by older drivers where they are unfit on our roads, there is no justification on road safety grounds for depriving older people of the right to drive, providing they can satisfy the DVLA that they are medically fit to do so. From time to time, there will be isolated cases where drivers evade those checks and endanger themselves and others by driving when they should not do so, but it is not clear at present that more stringent measures, such as compulsory medical examinations, eye tests or additional driving tests, would be the best way forward. The Government's overall aim is to maintain a balance between freedom of movement for older drivers and road safety for everyone.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East said, in 2005 the DVLA appointed consultants to undertake a fundamental review of its medical driver licensing system. The review was commissioned because the current arrangements have been in place since the early 1970s and to take into account significant demographic changes, medical developments and changes in public expectation that have occurred since then. The review looked at all aspects of the process for declaring, evidencing and assessing medical fitness to drive across all age groups. Recommendations for change centred on better identifying those whose fitness to drive needs to be formally assessed by the DVLA and on improved assessment and monitoring of those cases.
	In spite of press speculation about the possible introduction of cognitive and eyesight tests for drivers over the age of 75, as my hon. Friend has suggested again today, no decisions have yet been taken on the research findings. I can assure my hon. Friends that we will take account of their comments and views and the tragic case of Amicie when reaching those decisions. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East was correct to suggest that we have promised that, when we make those recommendations and decisions, there will be full consultation on them.
	It is essential to find ways to help older people to drive safely for as long as they are fit to do so. That is being done in a number of ways, including with research into developing training, information, counselling and driving assessment and support tools for older drivers. The 16 mobility centres in the UK, which make up the Forum of Mobility Centres, provide invaluable advice for elderly and disabled motorists to enable them to make informed decisions about their mobility needs. Such information ranges from advice on car adaptations and vehicle access to the individual assessment of driving ability. The forum, which in England is grant funded by the Department for Transport, includes the Department's own mobility advice and vehicle information service. The mobility centres are also used by the DVLA to carry out assessments to inform medical fitness to drive decisions. I will also take into account the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East about the Motability scheme. I assure him that, when people approach the scheme, it gives them advice about whether they need to declare any particular medical condition. However, he makes some interesting suggestions about the range of vehicles that Motability provides.
	A number of local authority schemes have been developed to improve older drivers' skills. The Driving Standards Agency's Arrive Alive Classic programme, which is aimed at older people's organisations, offers a wide range of relevant information for older drivers. We also encourage the establishment of refresher courses for older drivers who wish to brush up their driving skills.
	Most recently, I was pleased to note the announcement by the Institute of Advanced Motorists of its intention to enter this market in 2006. I also welcome the institute's new advisory leaflet for older drivers Staying Focused on Road Safety, which complements the Department's own Drive On! publication. The quality of information and variety of opportunities for assessment and training for older drivers are already quite impressive and expanding. As more drivers reach their later years and demand increases, I am sure that these services will make an even greater contribution to ensuring safe mobility for older drivers and improving road safety for the whole community.
	My hon. Friend has raised some important issues that deserve close further examination. He has my assurance that I will ensure that his views are taken into account and that this issue is given the detailed examination that it deserves.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at six minutes past Eight o'clock.